By Ivana Milojević
Metafuture.org, 2022
The Future Maker is an illustrated fiction book by Ivana Milojević. Graphic design is by Charmaine Sevil and Lynda Sampson. Intended for Change Makers of All Ages. The book is written in two parts. Part one is titled, The Girl Who Knew the Future (19pp) and part two is titled, The Girl Who Changed the Future (17pp).
More information about Futures Tales series https://tales.metafuture.org/
Purchase: EPUB
Welcome to the Metafuture School.
The Metafuture School is an online learning platform where anyone can create alternative and preferred futures.
You can enroll in Metafuture’s flagships online Futures Studies courses through the following links:
“Become a Futurist – Futures 101 with Sohail Inayatullah”
“Conflict Transformation – Futures methods and tools to resolve conflict with Ivana Milojević”
By Ivana Milojević
First published 11 May 2020, Journal of Futures Studies.
“The challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic is that …[a]t times such as these, our stress levels become higher and our difficult emotions seem to surface more readily. This not only leads to more conflicts, it leads to more unresolved conflicts.”[i]
“As a rise in family violence due to the coronavirus crisis is set to strain an already critically overstretched social support system, some abusers are reportedly using COVID-19 as a psychological weapon.”[ii]
“We could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months … the world is not only facing “a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe.”[iii]
“Covid-19 has brought wealthy nations to their knees. What will happen when the virus breaks out in a war zone?[iv] … the impact [may]be unpredictable and potentially catastrophic.[v]
“As the coronavirus sweeps the world, it hits the poor much harder than the better off. One consequence will be social unrest, even revolutions.”[vi]
“Covid-19 is fuelling conflict: New ways will be needed to make peace.”[vii]
The headlines above suggest the critical importance of enhancing our conflict resolution capacities. As COVID-19 races around the world, we can anticipate further increases in conflicts. Indeed, psychologists and humanitarian organizations (such as WHO, the Red Cross, Beyond Blue) have already posted some helpful guidelines as to how to defuse intra- and inter-personal conflicts. Developing mental resilience along these recommendations is critical because it is our response to the pandemic rather than the virus itself that will cause conflicts. And while, at this stage, we cannot fully control the virus’s spread and its impact on the economy, there are still actions we can do to minimize conflict. Even in situations of protracted social conflict, the outbreak is opening up a variety of ‘new and unexpected scenarios’, making a whole range of strategies, impossible before the pandemic, possible today (Garrigues, 2020).
Exploring our options for the futures of conflict is linked to how and why conflicts arise in the first place. However, the causes and mechanisms of conflict differ. There are several specific areas over which conflicts tend to arise. They include: information, resources, relationships, structures, and values. Furthermore, there is intrapersonal/inner conflict. Negative economic, social, and health impacts of the 2020 pandemic are already expected to be huge.[viii][ix] Fuelling existing and emerging conflicts will only make matters worse. Epidemics and pandemics have historically been known to change the course of history. At times, the change was positive, for example: improvement in hygiene practices, redistribution of wealth, improved individual and social relationships in the aftermath, and even “the end of chattel slavery” (Snowden, 2020) in some parts of the world. How damaged, or, alternatively, how well we come out of this one, will depend on many factors, including how we negotiate numerous conflicts ahead. Smart and workable strategies to minimise, manage and even transform the conflict for the better, will significantly influence our future lives and worlds.
INFORMATION
To start with, conflicts often arise in relation to insufficient information. Addressing conflicts about information is one of the easiest ways to prevent and ease the conflict. Policy makers and government agencies, reputable media, ethical individuals, organisations, and various experts all have a role to play in providing timely, accurate, and transparent information. This should help with finding the right balance between underestimating (‘I/we will certainly not get it’) and overestimating (‘we are all doomed’) the threat from the virus. Gathering facts and clarifying confusion makes a significant contribution to the easing of rising tensions – tensions that commonly bring fear, superstition, magical thinking, and conspiracy ideation into the open. This is always important, but it is especially critical nowadays (i.e. with the prevalence of ‘false/fake news’ and the ‘doubling-down’ of ideological positions), to rely on scientific, evidence-based and reputable sources of information. Governments, social media, and all of us can make a positive contribution in that regard. It can also be helpful to have a guiding metaphor or tagline to enable a focused strategy. For example, a helpful saying to address conflict related to insufficient or false information could be: ‘Accurate information, timely shared’ or ‘Information Hygiene’.
Brian Mcgowan, Unsplash
RESOURCES
Another common source of conflict is the scarcity of resources. We have seen ‘the battle over respirators’ increasingly becoming a source of international conflicts, corruption, and weakening previously friendly ties between nations (e.g. the US versus Germany or France and Germany versus Italy). At the community level, the police needed to intervene when ‘battles over toilet paper rolls’ in supermarkets manifested in physical violence.
Three key developments work in relation to conflicts over scarce resources. First, conflict decreases when the need for the resources dissipates, or individuals anticipate that there is no restriction, i.e. there are positive expectations of the future. This will likely happen if the need for respirators and other necessities – either due to virus containment or prevention/the invention of a cure or even fair rationing – diminishes. The race to find a workable vaccine and/or cure is already occurring and should be further encouraged and enabled. Fair rationing is currently ad-hoc, dependent on the goodwill of businesses and sporadic government measures. These measures should be made systemic, ongoing, and predictable. Uncertainty feeds into the existing and creates new conflicts. As much as possible, uncertainty should be reduced.
Another common strategy is to provide more of the resources that are currently scarce. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic that means producing more respirators and other necessities (i.e. products needed for hygiene and protection such as disinfectants, masks, and so on). As is already happening in some places (i.e. distillers producing hand sanitizers or clothing factories producing face masks) this means reevaluating current production priorities and/or repurposing existing production capacities. Local/national/global bodies coordinating such efforts could become invaluable.
The third strategy focuses on the fair sharing and allocation of resources. We usually deal with the lack of resources better than we do with uncertainty or (real or perceived) injustice in how resources are distributed. Clear and fair rules based on community needs and legal and ethical frameworks would go a long way in making this type of conflict dissipate. These rules and strategies should focus on people’s needs rather than wants; i.e. sharing what is needed, as opposed to free-market principles that enable panic buying.
A helpful guiding metaphor or saying for addressing conflicts related to the scarcity of resources could be: ‘There is enough for all – solidarity’ or ‘equitable/fair sharing’.
Mick Haupt, Unsplash
RELATIONSHIPS
Yet another common source of conflict is over relationships. We are already witnessing considerable damage done to interpersonal relationships because of people’s tendency to overreact and/or become more selfish when fear and panic strike. Also dangerous is the ‘blame game’ – accusations as to who has or may contract the virus from whom, who is (ir)responsible and who is excessively cautious/‘over the top’, who has done something similarly irresponsible in the past, and so on. These tensions will introduce some destructive elements to the existing differences between people and communities which would otherwise not cause many problems. Alternatively, if problems do arise due to these differences, they would (in calmer times) find relatively easy solutions. So what we all need to watch for is the possibility of the breakdown of personal relationships, and do our best to avoid stereotyping and scapegoating – both are very common practices amongst humans, especially during times of stress. The best antidote here is to not ‘other’ individuals and communities, but to turn our thinking around – from judgment and exclusionary/excessive self-focus to a compassionate view and concern for others. That is, other people can be seen as very similar to me/us, with the same fears, concerns and needs. This mental practice helps avoid ‘the worse of humanity’ which often manifests during times of conflict.
A helpful guiding metaphor for addressing conflicts related to relationships could be: ‘Everyone is me’ or ‘We are all in this together’.
Filip Filkovic-philatz, Unsplash
STRUCTURE
Conflicts about structure are related to access to power or resources, as well as to different amounts of respect and decision-making authority that are given to groups and individuals (Kraybill, 2001). We have created a very unequal world, where structural injustices determine that the well-being and even lives of certain groups of people are endangered. During crisis situations, the system ensures that those ‘on the top’ have higher chances of survival and a higher quality of life. Those at ‘the bottom’ face the opposite. For example, all over the world, the system of patriarchy ensures that women and children in situations of domestic violence will suffer violent conflict and abuse even more during the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, reports about the increased rate of domestic violence during lockdowns and other restrictive measures are multiplying (e.g. OHCHR, Graham-Harrison et al. 2020, Murray & Young, 2020, Kelly, 2020). As economically difficult and stressful situations are known to increase this type of violence, systemic countermeasures are absolutely necessary. Other protective measures are also needed for millions of people who are currently losing their jobs and incomes, those already unemployed and homeless, refugees and low-income foreign workers. Structural measures are needed to address the possibility of being evicted, deported or not being able to afford the basics – for this reason welfare payments, universal basic income or aid need to be enhanced. If these measures are not put in place, we could expect a rise in violent conflict, criminality and the number of preventable deaths. Ideally, the Covid-19 pandemic can provide an opportunity to address the world’s unequal systems and structures and create more equitable and fair societies. It is also an opportunity to provide much-needed support to the struggling health sector and health workers. In place of the ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘dog eats dog’ the guiding metaphor could be ‘global fairness’, ‘equitable societies – better for all’ or ‘flattening the inequity curve’.
Rusty Gouveia, Pixabay
VALUES
Conflicts over relationships and structure can be difficult to resolve due to our common insular and myopic views based on short-term thinking. Even harder is resolving conflicts involving values. For example, the rush to create a workable vaccine may be motivated by values which focus on profit or national interest (such as the US president’s offer to purchase exclusive access to coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German company) versus those that focus on altruism and the long-term greater good. Yet another value position is based on certain religious beliefs (‘God decides what happens’) versus values based on rational/secular beliefs (‘Humans are in charge’). Values and beliefs are commonly formed based on certain previous life experiences or ideological and faith positions. We can expect a shift in personal values (i.e. ‘It is important to shake peoples’ hands when we first meet them’ towards ‘social-distancing’) based on new experiences, whereas others might solidify even further (i.e. various faith positions). For example, the anti-vaxxer position is unlikely to shift, even if a reliable vaccine becomes available and the illness caused by the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) becomes more visible in their community. Discourses about ‘Big Pharma’, ‘natural’ immunity and the ‘benefits’ of the virus eliminating the old or sick members of the community will most likely continue acting as a cognitive ‘shield’ that prevents personal values and beliefs from being undermined by external reality. The best strategy so far invented here is to allocate a separate sphere of influence for each set of values – rational/secular/evidence-based/scientific to the realm of the state and government and policy-making vis-à-vis religious beliefs to the realm of the spiritual and psychological. Moreover, there will be an ongoing discussion in relation to privacy issues and individual freedom vis-à-vis public safety. Individualistic and liberal communities and societies will struggle more with the coming restrictions than collectivist and rules-based authoritarian societies. The helpful guiding metaphor will thus depend on the context: i.e. ‘In Government/Our Leaders (or Scientists and Health Workers) We Trust’ or ‘Community Mobilizes’.
Jordan Hopkins, Unsplash
INTRAPERSONAL
Certainly, the inner, intrapersonal conflict will also skyrocket. ‘Should I exercise in a closed area?’, ‘Should I go visit such and such?’, ‘Should I travel to XYZ?’, ‘How much food should I stock up on?’, ‘Do I have enough toilet paper?’, ‘How long will this last?’, ‘How will I make ends meet?, ‘Is XYZ financial decision smart or stupid?’, ‘What will happen to the others if I get sick’, ‘How will I cope if I get ill?’, etc. The main conflict will be between our ‘rational’ self and our ‘fearful/panicky’ one, as well as between our ‘inner extrovert’ and ‘inner introvert’. The best strategy so far invented in this regard is to practice ‘watching one’s own thoughts’ (i.e. mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, critical thinking) and to attempt to distance ourselves a bit from them. Once we gain that small distance, we can then try to investigate what each sub-personality has to offer. Perhaps some sort of balance between rationality and fear should inform our actions? For example, we can take some precautions such as washing our hands and channel our fearful self (subpersonality) into vigilance over that specific set of actions related to personal hygiene. Another specific set of actions we can take based on our fearful self is to be vigilant about sources of information and double-check whether they are coming from reputable sources – information hygiene. On the other hand, our rational self (sub-personality) can assist us in preventing overreactions and making rash decisions based on emotions. Striking a balance between the two will, once again, go a long way in addressing our inner conflicts. Thus, one may choose to see themselves as assets rather than imaging these selves as opposing sides in a battlefield.
Another common inner conflict is between ‘control’ and ‘letting go’. Once again, balancing insights from these different types of mental processes is critical. The key is to direct time and energy towards things we can control, such as how to qualitatively organize one’s time during self-isolation or which recommendations to follow and to let go of things we cannot, such as other people’s behavior or other external factors.
Indeed, refocusing our attention is critical to minimizing personal anxiety and interpersonal conflict. So instead of overly focusing on ‘I do not want to die,’ ‘I do not want [somebody close to me]to die’, or ‘I will not be able to cope if I [or somebody close to me]get sick’ (thoughts possibly at the back of most people’s minds), the focus could be on ‘How can I help?’, ‘What is and is not in my sphere of influence?’, ‘How can I best ‘let go’ of things I cannot control?’, or ‘What is the wisest way for me to contribute?’. Psychologists commonly recommend strengthening self-care in times of crisis. This includes both behavioral (i.e. sufficient sleep, good food, some safe exercise, relaxation, etc.) and psychological responses (i.e. being aware of one’s own thinking and behavior and adjusting these patterns if needed). Spiritual and religious practices have been shown to be beneficial in crises as well (i.e. ‘Let go and let God’), providing they do not cause the erroneous application of ‘faith-based solutions’ in the material world, where fact-based solutions are necessary. The best way forward is: 1. Choosing the thoughts and actions that minimize the possibility of violence arising now and in the future, and 2. Using existing conflicts to create something new, a better future.
The guiding metaphors could be: ‘The Kindness (to oneself and others) Pandemic’ or ‘Self-Others care’.
Andre Ouellet, Unsplash
EMERGENCE: CREATING INNER AND OUTER BALANCE
Finally, conflict theorists also commonly mention that every conflict can become a golden opportunity to create something new. For example, perhaps we could use this time to pause and reevaluate some personal values and practices (i.e. from ‘big life questions’ such as: ‘how should I live my life knowing that I can die unexpectedly and suddenly’, to smaller questions such as: ‘how should I organize my daily activities during this forced pause’, or, ‘how could I best be of service to others’)?
We can also inquire into solutions that are needed to improve existing social structures, systems and institutions. Perhaps the coronavirus and other environmental changes could help us rethink the human-nature relationship so that this relationship is also improved? Indeed, there is an opportunity to generate a strong global response to the climate crisis, and out of the “ashes of the corona crisis [create]something new” (Watts, 2020). Or, given the difficulties nations and states face to solve global problems, perhaps we could investigate what type of global and, alternatively, communal/regional/local institutions we should create or enhance?
We are already seeing efforts to coordinate global health efforts, even transform existing economic and social structures as well as the worldview behind them. For example, a joint statement of the G20 leaders framed the Covid-19 pandemic as a ‘powerful reminder of our inter-connectedness and vulnerabilities’ (G20, 2020). Because ‘the virus respects no borders’ they committed to ‘presenting a united front against this common threat’ (ibid.). Their call for action should be replicated as a springboard for a host of other problems – from climate change to global inequality – conflicts around Covid-19 thus truly becoming an opportunity to create something substantially better for the future. In their words, what is needed is ‘a transparent, robust, coordinated, large-scale and science-based global response in the spirit of solidarity’ (ibid.). Beyond dealing with this pandemic, there is much work left to be done. In addition to addressing pandemics, a global campaign for ‘a new just world economic system, where all nations work for the benefit of the other in a win-win fashion’ is also needed – ‘we need to change our outlook, or we [humans]will perish’ (Askary, 2020). Indeed, countless individuals and organizations have already been working on workable solutions towards such a transition for decades.
And yet, we do live in an imbalanced nation-based geopolitical system. We are in the middle of numerous conflicts, inner and outer. Some entrenched values and worldviews are behind structures and systems that reward inequity and injustice. Alternatives are all around us, though they remain marginalized. Balancing acts are never easy. Yet, depending on how skilled we are or become in the process of minimizing versus enhancing thoughts and behavior that give rise to conflict, we can influence the development of more or less peaceful futures. Indeed, with each and every action we take these days, we already do so. Hope remains that we can all use this illness as a way to make ourselves, others, and the planet healthier. The new guiding metaphor could be: ‘A different, better world and the best possible selves are possible’.
| Source and Type of Conflict: | Makes it worse | Makes it better |
| Information | Inability to discriminate between false and real information | Relying on scientific, evidence-based and reputable sources of information |
| Resources | Uncertainty and unfairness of allocation | Clear and fair rules based on community needs |
| Relationships |
Blaming, scapegoating, stereotyping | Compassion and concern towards others |
| Structure | Measures that help the more powerful | Measures that help the most vulnerable |
| Values | Insularity, rigidity | Dialogue, openness |
| Intrapersonal | Focusing on thoughts and actions that enhance fear, create controlling behavior and lead to being overwhelmed | Awareness, self-other care, balancing sub-personalities, gratitude, surrender to what’s outside of one’s control |
| Source and Type of Conflict: | Detrimental guiding metaphor | Helpful guiding metaphor |
| Information | I see, I share | Accurate information, timely shared; Information hygiene |
| Resources | Me/We first; First come, first served | There is (will be) enough for all; Solidarity and fairness |
| Relationships | ‘They’ are causing the pandemic | We are all in this together |
| Structure | Survival of the fittest | Flattening the inequity curve |
| Values | Natural immunity; We/humans are powerless | In government/our leaders/scientists/ health workers we trust; Community mobilizes |
| Intrapersonal | The sky is falling | Kindness pandemic |
Table by: Ivana Milojević, Metafuture, www.metafuture.org
About the Author
Dr. Ivana Milojević is a researcher, writer and educator with a trans-disciplinary professional background in sociology, education, gender, peace and futures studies and Director of Metafuture. She has held professorships at several universities and is currently focused on conducting research, delivering speeches and facilitating workshops for governmental and academic institutions, international associations, and non-governmental organizations. Dr. Milojević can be contacted at ivana@metafuture.org
The author would like to thank Charmaine Sevil for her creativity on the images in this article. Charmaine Sevil is a futures designer and her website is www.sevilco.com.au
References:
[i] https://www.relationshipswa.org.au/news-events/current-news-and-events/2020/april/how-to-manage-relationship-tensions-during-covid-1
[ii] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-29/coronavirus-family-violence-surge-in-victoria/12098546
[iii] https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1062272
[iv] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/coronavirus-conflict-zones-fight-has-hardly-begun
[v] https://devpolicy.org/peace-and-the-pandemic-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-conflict-in-asia-20200414/
[vi] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-11/coronavirus-this-pandemic-will-lead-to-social-revolutions
[vii] https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/covid-19-is-fuelling-conflict-new-ways-will-be-needed-to-make-peace
[viii] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-03-19/real-pandemic-danger-social-collapse
[ix] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17167882; https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/646195/EPRS_BRI(2020)646195_EN.pdf
从“⼼”改变未来|对话未来 04 Sohail Inayatullah（上篇）
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新冠疫情不是⿊天鹅！|对话未来 04 Sohail Inayatullah（下篇）
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上篇
从“心”改变未来|对话未来 An interview with Sohail Inayatullah
15岁受到未来学家阿尔文·托夫勒的影响关注未来，
40年前就开始研究人工智能未来趋势和机器人权益，
成为联合国教科文组织中的首位未来学教席，
与亚太17国政府高层探讨国际和地域未来发展，
开创了未来学研究理论的CLA模型，被学术和商界广泛采用….
这一次，我们对话未来的嘉宾是全球知名未来学家Sohail Inayatullah教授。
Sohail Inayatullah教授是全球知名未来学家、政治学家、 联合国教科文组织首位未来学教席(UNESCO Chair In Futures Studies)、Causal-Layers Analysis (CLA)理论奠基人。被Shaping Tomorrow Foresight Network授予未来学家终身成就劳伦斯桂冠奖。主笔或参与编辑的书籍多达35本，他的内容曾被收录到《麦克米伦未来大百科》中。
2019年9月，我们受到未来学家Sohail Inayatullah教授的邀请，参加在泰国曼谷举办的亚太未来学联盟大会APFN( Asia-Pacific Futurist Network)，并发表主题演讲《中国年轻人眼中的未来》 。
APFN是Sohail教授发起并推动的一个国际联盟，专门促进国际组织、政府部门、企业和非营利组织中的未来学家，对未来议题展开前沿探讨以及方法论的切磋交流。正因为这样的机缘，我们独家采访了Sohail教授。
未来学家俱乐部的三位发起人和Sohail教授在大会现场的合影
新年伊始，我们将通过分享Sohail教授的洞见，为你照亮通向新一年的未来路径。
或许你会好奇：
FC（未来学家俱乐部）：首先，您对“未来学家”的定义是什么？您会称呼自己是未来学家吗？
SI (Sohail Inayatullah教授)：“未来学家”有诸多的定义。一种广义的观点是，每个人都是未来学家，因为我们都对思考和预判明天。狭义上，未来学家特指那些具备未来学理论和实践的人，更符合我个人的定位。我一共出版了三十多本关于未来学理论的书以及相关的期刊。在战略远见的实践方面，我的目标是让人们更清晰地思考他们想要的未来。当房间里有人开始争论，我从不点评谁对未来的预判是对或错的，因为那不是我该做的，我们作为未来学家的角色更多是以问题启发的形式让参与者学会质疑已有的假设，从而找到一个长期的、共益的未来方向。从这个维度上看，我肯定会把自己称为未来学家。当然，我鼓励大家去掌握双重知识。如果设计是你的专长，那么你可以成为设计师兼未来学家；如果你是个工程师，你可以成为工程师兼未来学家，这并不是一个二选一的问题。
FC：在您的个人介绍中，我们注意到“联合国教科文组织未来学教席“，如何理解这一职务？
SI ：联合国科教文组织为了在全球范围内推广和普及各个学科的相关知识，而设立了教席一职。每个学科的教席则负责统筹这些知识。我作为未来学教席，重点负责包括中国、韩国、日本、澳大利亚、美国夏威夷和东南亚等亚太国家和地区。前段时间刚好亚洲发展银行邀请我作为顾问，到北京为政府部门提供未来教育有关的战略共创工作坊。参与者们都希望推动体制教育的创新，他们使用的比喻令我印象深刻，这也是我在2019年最棒的经历之一。
图片来源：UNESCO官网
FC：以未来学家和未来学教席的双重身份，您的主要工作是什么？
SI：如果用植树打个比方，在第一阶段，当我刚获得博士学位、成为这一方面的专业人士时，我做的事主要是“播种”。我在布里斯班（澳大利亚）、曼谷（泰国）以及新加坡等不同国家和地区都播下了未来学的种子。接下来，第二阶段做的事是培育小树，我会一遍又一遍的回到这些地方，并且发展不同国际组织和政府部门的战略远见能力，比如，国际执法组织、城市规划、司法、生物安全部门、火灾和紧急服务部门等。最初的种子发芽变成了小树，许多人都成为在战略远见和创新领域的先锋。这些小树的茁壮成长源于持续不断的研讨交流和实践，以及像亚太未来学联盟（APFN）这样的支持系统。到了第三阶段，我的使命是创造一片森林。既然是森林，我不再需要关注谁是森林里最拔尖、最聪明的树，但是我们仍要保证这个森林不会受到破坏。对我来说，我的终极目标是让这片森林一直生机盎然。有的树是小树，就和你们一样；有的树是年长一点的大树。而我需要做的是确保所有人都有充足的水源，给他们灵感、知识、拓展的视角以及一个不断在实践的社群组织。
今年的APFN大会主题为“共享繁荣2030”，将在9月于马来西亚举办。（图片来源：MyForesight）
FC：您是如何开启未来学研究生涯的？可否跟我们分享一下您的个人故事？
SI：我个人的成长足迹遍布世界各地，从巴基斯坦、印第安纳、纽约、马来西亚、曼谷，一直到夏威夷，这些经历让我目睹了地域文化有其狭隘的一面，人们只认同他们自己的价值观。而我很幸运自己从小有机会见识如此多元的价值观。很快，我就意识到如果想要一个更好的未来，我不能只沉浸在一种文化价值体系中。我还意识到，许多问题不是只有小小的改变就能解决的，我们需要在整个系统上解决问题。我17岁那年在夏威夷大学上过Jim Dator的未来学课程。当时听到了机器人学、社会变迁及相关理论，这些改变了我思考世界和理解未来的方式。后来，我本科主要学习社会变迁，然后硕士是关于未来学。之后开始实习，并在接下来的十年都在夏威夷司法部门工作。
右三为Jim Dator，美国夏威夷大学未来研究中心总监、教授，也是Sohail教授的老师。
(图片来源：网络)
有趣的是，我早在1983年发表的第一篇论文是关于机器人的合法权利的。那时，我们好奇如果法官被机器人取代，将会发生什么？如果AI机器人可以执行刑事审判，法官也许会成为哲学家，那么我们如何将一部分重复的、不那么核心的工作移交给AI机器人？另外，我的论文里也试图探讨：如果机器人拥有像猫和狗一样的权利，我们的世界会发生怎样的变化？这些关于未来司法的前瞻讨论引发了这个领域从业者的极大关注，到了1992年，美国司法部资助了32个州的司法部门开展前瞻战略研究。
FC：您是如何在上个世纪80年代就预见未来AI和机器人的可能性？
SI：我的“未来信号”来自于15岁时看的一部改编自未来学家阿尔文·托夫勒著作的科幻电影。在电影里，有一对情侣在柔美的背景音乐下牵手，他们周围还有美丽的树。你会觉得，哦，多么浪漫美好的画面啊。直到他们转过身来，观众们才发现这对情侣是对机器人。这一幕震惊到了我。
图片来源：Bill Mayer
FC：您从事未来学研究工作已超过40年，这里源源不断的动力是什么？
SI：未来学一直都很引人入胜呐！这里有三方面的主要因素。首先，坚持学习。每周我都会研究最前沿的科技并思考接下来要发生什么。比如，今年的方法论培训课（Sohail教授的未来学曼谷培训工作坊）上我就从一位新加坡未来学家那里学到了食物的地球工程改造。我之前从没想到过这样的解决方案。我们知道气象的地球工程改造是什么，但是我从来没想过改变土壤来种植新的农作物。
另外一个至关重要的因素是，帮助他人从“心”开始改变。想成为一名优秀的的未来学家？你需要深刻理解你的人生故事，我们内心的隐喻塑造了我们是谁。在大部分我的工作坊结束之际，我看到不少人或潸然泪下，因为工作坊启发甚至改变了他们的人生。在今天的课堂上，一位来自曼谷的未来城市规划专家特意邀请他的夫人来参加，他已经不是第一次来上课了，我相信正是因为他自己内心的巨大变化才会做出这样的选择，并且带上夫人共同探索自己的内心世界和人生旅途。
我继续给你们讲个故事吧。我很喜欢跟小孩一起玩，有一次我为7个12岁左右的小朋友主持了2小时长的战略共创工作坊，带领他们用CLA模型思考问题。我先问这些孩子：你们觉得2030年的世界会怎样？你那时会在做什么？我最喜欢的答案是一个孩子说她会在2025年成为“彩虹糖豆公司”的总裁。之后，我问她：你对你目前生活的比喻是什么？未来的“彩虹糖豆公司”的总裁说，她的比喻是“她只身在一个房间里，窗帘全都拉上了”。她的朋友们听完就哭了，边哭边说：“你想成为一个总裁，但是你现在的生活像一扇关闭的门。” 我接着问：这个故事告诉你什么？她立马就理解了——这个故事代表着失败。接着她的朋友们告诉她：他们都爱她，但是为什么她没有和他们心连心呢？然后七个孩子都哭了，非常震撼。我一边安慰他们，一边给她建议：“你的愿景很美好，但是你的故事却存在落差。那有没有更好的故事呢？”她说：“让阳光照进来吧。”然后我说：“这句话战略上到底是什么意思呢？如果这是你的新故事，那你会在哪些地方做出改变？”有人说她数学很好，有人说她科学不错。作为一个总裁，不仅需要技术层面的知识，还要有互助合作的情商。他们都明白了这一点，最后互相拥抱。给他们带来这样内心的变化，让我感到幸福和满足。
第三个因素是影响力的善用。我从20岁开始一直在做学术研究，建立未来学研究的理论并刻苦学习。40年过后，随着我在联合国教科文组织、亚洲发展银行、各国政府、教育系统，以及跨国非政府组织展开的工作，个人影响力也随之显著提升，这样可以帮助身边更多的个体和组织。人们想要一个更美好的世界，他们想要工具和方法来创造这样的世界。
FC：也有人对未来学家表示质疑，他们可能觉得未来学家只会狂言乱语，您对此怎么看？为什么未来学家会有这样的负面名声？
SI：这是个残酷的现实我们不得不面对。在上世纪80年代，我刚开始做未来学研究那会儿是很难的。1989年，柏林高墙坍塌了。这改变了人们的认知：曾经以为不会变的事都将发生改变。接着我么看到了更多的证据以证明世界在变化：苏联解体，基因工程启动，互联网普及，亚洲四小龙崛起，随后又有亚洲金融危机，9/11事件，中国经济腾飞…这些都在20年内发生了，世界在迅速改变着。正因如此，未来学研究和战略远见能力变得必不可少。
对于那些收到负面评价的未来学家，他们做错的地方可能来自几个方面。第一，他们预测结果：这会发生，而且我肯定是对的。第二，当他们与别人合作时，他们会说：你错了，我才是对的。第三，他们不会使用他人的语言体系并触及他们的人生故事，从而并未真正理解对方。
在我个人的工作习惯里，我总是会去问每个跟我合作的人：你是谁？你需要什么？你个人/所在组织的核心故事是什么？当一个团队邀请我去做战略共创工作坊时，我会问，你们想要参与者在下午5点离开会议室前学到什么。不同企业、机构和组织的需求千变万化，我会用他们的语言和故事跟他们一起工作，这跟告诉你的合作者“我有答案，你没有”截然不同。
FC：那么，从另一个角度来说，如何成为一名出色的未来学家？
SI：首先是方法论，要是没有系统方法论和思考框架的支持，你会很容易落入夸夸其谈抑或是奇闻逸事。因此，你需要良好的方法论基础并使用你喜欢的思考工具。其次，对我来说，是通晓历史。我并非中国话题的专家，但我读过司马迁的《史记》。你需要会读书，并阅读不同国家和文化的经典著作。我和Johan Galtung写了一本关于宏观历史的书，里面梳理了不同文明里时间和空间的核心规律。这个方法帮助我们从不同文化的视角窥见一个长期的未来。第三是引导的能力。引导是未来学家很重要的技能之一，因为关于未来的讨论通常很有挑战。我们需要给参与者足够的包容和空间可以探讨未来的不同可能性。第四点也是最后一点，要学会如何灵活地应变不同的环境和挑战。
FC：作为一个未来学家，您的一天通常是怎么度过的？
SI：有两部分。第一部分是内心的部分，我真心觉得冥想是非常重要的。冥想的形式并不重要，重要的是要掌握呼吸和慢下来的本领。因为所有事物都在改变，我们则更需要保持稳定，不能惊慌。我们的大脑需要慢下来。慢思考意味着我们可以看清规律并连接碎片，伴随着冥想大脑的规律识别能力也会逐渐增强。我已经冥想四十多年了，我的建议是你不需要特别用力地去冥想。冥想就像是给你的大脑冲个澡，帮你用新的方式领会这个世界。第二部分就是你需要看清楚接下来会发生的事以及可能的黑天鹅事件。这也是我们需要日常锻炼的远见能力。当别人看不见时，我们能够看见。
下篇
新冠疫情不是黑天鹅！|对话未来 An interview with Sohail Inayatullah
此次新冠疫情并非黑天鹅事件，而是长期潜在问题累积而引发的危机。除了应对当下疫情之外，更重要的是去反思：如果未来新冠病毒的再次爆发仍是可能的，我们该如何预防并提前制定相应措施。
当新冠疫情爆发时，我们向来自不同国家、不同领域的未来学家请教他们对此次疫情的看法。Sohail教授便是其中之一。他从十年前便开始关注流行病学的研究，并预判新冠病毒爆发可能性一直存在，只是具体时间难以预测。对于未来，他认为我们必须从消费主义中反思我们的饮食结构和来源，以及从城市设计上如何在人类和动物之间保留缓冲地带。
访谈亮点：
FC（未来学家俱乐部）：作为联合国未来学教席，您是否可以从专业角度帮我们理解“未来学”、“远见”和“预测”这几个概念的差别？
SI (Sohail Inayatullah教授)：未来学(Futures Studies)就像是一把巨大的伞，其伞盖下包含了理论、方法、实践以及个体的变化。它的定义很广泛，指向的是长期的未来，关于想要的（preferred)、可能会发生的(possible)、合理会发生的（plausible) 以及极有可能发生的(probable)的未来，以及这些未来可能性背后的世界观和隐喻。
未来学的两个重要概念：远见 vs 预测（原图来自于Dune & Raby）
远见（Foresight) 相对而言更为具体些，它指的是获取关于未来的预期和展望（又译为“预判”）。
每一个地域的传统文化里都有关于远见的表达。在马来西亚，有句谚语说的是Sediakan payung sebelum hujan （意思是：下雨前把雨伞准备好）。在英语文化中，人们常说A stitch in time saves nine (意思是：小洞不补，大洞吃苦)。在中国，我相信也有很多类似的文化习俗。例如，阴历和24节气反映了农民对于未来的预判。
图片来源：win4000.com
另外一个概念是预测（Forecast)。 这个概念会更狭义和具体。比如，股市将在一年后达到三万点，或者为残疾人服务的机器操控台在未来七年内将变得更加普及。
预测是单一的、线性的、具体的，
远见则是看到不同未来可能性的能力。
战略远见是在既有条件下的优化；变革远见则关注外部环境如何变化，以及适应变化所需的自身改变。
FC：在商业实践中，未来学是如何被应用的？
SI：在商业的语境中，人们通常会使用战略远见(Strategic Foresight)这个词。不过，我个人主推并擅长的是变革远见（Transformative Foresight)。战略远见是你拿到你认为想要的；变革远见可能则是要改变自己。企业高管们更偏好战略变革远见，因为他们希望先改变自己。
自我的隐喻：过去 vs 未来
我在战略远见培训中遇到过一个总裁，我们一起用CLA模型（点击跳转了解CLA模型）去分析他个人的内心变化。我问他，你碰到的问题是什么？他说：每次他带着预先的设想参加各种会议，但参会时他总会因为层出不穷的陌生话题感到焦虑甚至迷茫。
我说，好吧，这个问题如果做个比喻的话，你的比喻会是什么？他以打网球为比喻：他本来很擅长在草地球场上打网球，现在当他要去一块新的球场打球时，他不确定那是什么类型的球场，是草地还是泥地，也不确定击球的速度是快还是慢。世界正在在变化，他有点应接不暇。
那么，对他而言，“战略”是指优化在草地球场上的打球效率，而“变革远见”是指他能适应在不同的球场上打球。为了改变自我，他找到的新比喻是“一个能在多样化球场打球的人”。
接着我就说，这个比喻可以带你到2030年，到那时你会是谁呢？
他说，他会变成一个教练，并且打球更多是为了休闲放松、提升技能、改变规则、找寻人生挚爱。我说，为什么会有那样的想法？他继续说到，当他五岁时，他就很纯粹地享受打网球的乐趣。长大后作为一名企业的管理者，脑子里却总是在想如何为企业赚更多的钱。
这便是区别。战略远见是在既有条件下的优化；变革远见则关注外部环境如何变化，以及适应变化所需的自身改变，比战略远见更为深刻，于我也更有意义。
图片来源：123RF.com
FC：未来到底多遥远？如何定义合理的时间范围去思考未来？
SI：思考未来的时间框架得按不同行业有所区分。一个城市级别的战略远见项目大约要看未来30-40年，因为建筑师们告诉我重建所有建筑需要40年。在医药领域里，产品创新一般需要12-15年的时间。对于小型的初创企业，通常时间会更短些。当然如果看得太远，你的同事或客户会觉得他们无法带来影响；如果看得太近，比如6个月内的计划，则更多是执行安排，你需要的是旅行社，而非未来学家。
通常来说，未来学家会看7年，或15-20年的未来。
FC：在您的新书《亚洲2038》里，您讲到了未来3000年的亚洲，那这个时间范围的意义是什么？
SI：下一个千年的未来是为了喜欢未来理论以及宏观历史的人准备的，尤其是对于未来充满憧憬的年轻人。而对于企业决策者来说，3000年意味着天方夜谭，或者遥远、不切实际的科幻创作。对于大部分组织而言，去看未来10-15年的战略远见是有必要的，否则可能会因为太远显得无关紧要。
对未来有准备的公司其盈利表现通常高出市场平均水平33%。
FC：作为一个与政府首脑、组织和企业高管们合作多年的未来学家，您如何评估未来思维之于他们的价值？
SI：未来思维的第一个价值是降低风险。如果我们做未来的情境规划（scenario planning)，实际上就是在减少决策失误的风险。
第二个价值是通过关注边缘创新发现新的商业机会、新市场以及新产品。未来不仅仅是优化，它更需要我们突破现有的思维框架。
第三个价值是树立愿景。一个没有愿景和目标的人，其实是很可怜的，国家亦如此。如果你是一个贫穷国家，只关注眼前水和食物等基本问题。当你变成一个发达国家并有希望在接下来的100年里繁荣发展时，最好有一个清晰的愿景。
此外，我们也注意到来自法国未来学家René Rohrbeck的研究成果：善于利用战略远见且对未来有准备的公司其盈利表现通常高出市场平均水平33%。
未来远见能力不同的公司在盈利表现上的差异。图片来源：Corporate foresight and its impact on firm performance: A longitudinal analysis, by René Rohrbeck, Menes EtingueKum
FC：“战略远见”在亚洲各国的发展和应用如何？
SI：在亚洲，我们看到不少政府部门运用未来思维和战略远见的案例。以新加坡为例，他们的总理办公室下设有Center for Strategic Futures (CSF)。我问这个部门的人，为何新加坡在国家层面如此注重未来布局。他们说，新加坡的自然资源是有限的，他们的竞争力在于大脑和微笑，即远见和服务：远见的能力带动了创新，微笑提升了服务。
此外，马来西亚有相应的政府部门，叫做MIGHT (Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology)；泰国政府的科技和科学部下设NIA (National Innovation Agency)，柬埔寨政府正在做未来50年的愿景和规划。缅甸政府也在做类似的尝试。
FC：您跟亚洲开发银行（ADB）有很多合作，是否方便分享一下ADB如何在组织外部推动战略远见呢？
SI：四年前，亚洲开发银行派了两位高管来上我的战略远见培训课。上完后，他们觉得醍醐灌顶。接着，他们邀请我去为ADB的高层们上3天的课程，同时我给他们做了关于知识未来的主题演讲。高层们在上完课程后，突然意识到他们需要重新思考ADB的投资策略——从基础设施建设的借贷到知识建设的赋能。
一方面，发展起来的国家借钱借的少了，因为他们逐渐变的更富有了，因此ADB需要改变他们对银行和对钱的看法。他们创新部门的领导目前的工作重心就是将ADB转型成为一个知识银行。也就是说，如果国家能开始重新思考知识，比如，我们该从哪里获取知识，他们就想到去找ADB。
目前，他们在不同国家都开展未来思维和战略远见的工作坊，目的是与每个国家、每个城市中最优秀的、最聪明的人建立合作，从而创造一个更好的亚洲。 ADB给我们的启示是：如果过去的经验到现在仍然适用，那非常棒，至于它是过去的或是现在的并不重要；但如果过去的策略不再奏效，那我们何必执着于它？
战略远见的价值在于帮助我们找出不再适用的地方，从而进行改变和颠覆。
图片来源:khmertimeskh.com
FC：您跟中国政府、企业、大学是否开展过战略远见相关的工作？
SI：几个月前，亚洲开发银行邀请我来到北京，与中国财政部和国家发改委的官员们共同探讨教育的未来。这只是推广未来思维和战略远见的第一阶段，现在我们在等下一阶段的合作。另外，蚂蚁金服是我合作的第一个中国企业，当时是在香港的三天战略远见课程。
同时，我也在台湾淡江大学任教，这门课程在80年代引进的。1986年，未来学本科课程第一次开课；2000年，学校开设了研究生项目。未来学课程是每个学生的必修课。在过去20年内，约8万名学生学习了这门课程。
中国将要超越西方，那时中国对整个地球和人类的愿景是什么？
FC：您如何看待战略远见对于中国的价值？
SI：要回答这个问题，我们需要思考为什么中国需要通过战略远见实现腾飞。旧的模型是追赶西方，然后一旦追上了西方，接下来要做什么？这就像是参加一个跑步比赛，你赢了，现在你干什么？只是回家睡觉吗？你在追赶上后需要一个新的愿景和目标。
中国将要超越西方，那时中国对整个地球和人类的愿景是什么？2050年，中国将全面实现社会主义现代会，成为发达国家。那么接下来呢？2090年的目标又是什么？一带一路倡议带来更广泛的经济繁荣，但仍停留同一个模式里。
战略远见对于中国的价值在于提升跨越式腾飞的可能性并找到新的愿景和目标。
我们的盲点通常在于看不见真正推开或排斥的东西。
FC：在您看来，思考未来的挑战是什么？您有什么建议？
SI：你试图压制的东西会以另外一种方式反弹，你试图推开的东西会以另外一种方式回来。这在我有生之年的经历里是个颠簸不破的真理。所有我认识的20多岁的人，他们在年轻的时候会把一些东西推开，但是到60多岁就与这些东西共同生活。盲点是其中的一个障碍，因为你通常看不见你真正推开的东西。比如，我和我的朋友在20多岁时会忽视市场经济，因为我们不懂市场经济。现在50多岁的我们正生活在市场经济中，所以这就是我们被推回来的东西。
我不知道你的“回推/反弹”会是什么，但这里有个关键的问题值得思考下：我们现在舍弃了什么。
FC：您的新书《亚洲 2038》简体中文版计划什么时候发布？
SI：这本书的英文原版2018年就发布了，韩语版预计2020年一月会出。简体中文版的翻译也快结束了，我们现在寻求合适的中国出版商，希望这本书可以很快在中国出版，也希望中国读者会喜欢这本书。未来，我也期待在中国引进更多关于未来思维的学术类书籍，同时把战略远见工作坊推广到更多的企业、组织和个人。
Journal of Futures Studies, March 2020, 24(3): 97–104
Zara Durnan, Formerly of Jacobs, ‘Corunna’, Deniliquin, NSW 2710, Australia
Sohail Inayatullah, Unesco Chair in Futures Studies; USIM, Malaysia; Tamkang University, Taiwan; University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia
* Web Text version of each JFS paper here is for easy reading purpose only, for the valid and published context of each article, please refer to the PDF version.
Keywords: Universal Basic Income, Automation, Causal Layered Analysis, Scenarios
This essay explores universal basic income in Australia. It uses causal layered analysis and scenarios to deepen and broaden the debate.
The idea of the universal basic income (UBI) is gaining momentum in popular and political discourse, as it migrates from fanciful theory to a feasible welfare alternative in the face of a changing global labour market and rapid advances in artificial intelligence and automation.
A recent World Development Report “asserts that 68.9% of jobs in India are at high risk – and that number remains at 42.6% even if adjusted for a lag in technology adoption.” (Verick, 2017). In the United States, economists Carl Frey and Michael Osborne concluded 47% of jobs are at high risk of automation. The International Labour Organization estimates that 137 million workers or 56% of the salaried workforce from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are at great risk of losing employment in the next twenty years (Aravindan & Wong, 2016).
While retraining is the normal policy prescription, the scale of automation suggests retraining is unlikely to be enough. Automation strikes at the core of the capitalist economy, with the notion of work itself potentially under threat. Universal basic income creates a base from which other alternatives can spring forth leading to enhanced entrepreneurship, innovation, social stability, and cooperatives, for example. Of course, in Western history, debates on universal basic income go back centuries, with many considering Johannes Vives (pp. 1492-1540) the founder of the idea even though he resisted a preventive mode of economy, that is, the notion of providing income before the need arose (Basic Income Earth Network, n.d.).
Earlier, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) argued that a new global economic model was required. He wrote: “Anarchism has the advantage as regards liberty, Socialism as regards the inducement to work. Can we not find a method of combining these two advantages? It seems to me that we can. […] Stated in more familiar terms, the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful… When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.” (Russell, 1918) (Basic Income Earth Network, n.d.).
In the Asian context, philosopher P.R. Sarkar (1921-1990) argued – through his third way model, Prout (the progressive utilization theory) – that intellectual and spiritual progress was only possible if the basic needs of all humans (housing, education, clothes, food, and health) were met (Sarkar, 2018). Along with a minimum base there is to be a maximum ceiling that continuously moved as more wealth was created through spiritual and technological innovation. While in his preferred articulation this is accomplished to increasing worker purchasing power, full employment is increasingly becoming a challenge.
More recently, in ”1984, a group of researchers and trade unionists close to the University of Louvain (Belgium) published a provocative UBI scenario.” (Basic Income Earth Network, n.d.) which led to a gathering of UBI supporters.
But while many have imagined a UBI, concrete trials have been recent.
In 2017 – 2018, Finland became the first European country to trial the application of a UBI – a guaranteed and unconditional payment made to all adult citizens to allow them to meet their basic needs, which is not activity or means tested – with unemployed Finns receiving a guaranteed payment per month for two years, paid even if they find work during that period (The Independent, 2017). The nation has decided it not to continue the trial with the evaluation suggesting that participants were happier – less stressed – but jobs did not result. (BBC, 2019).
Since 2017, two cities in Ontario, Canada have been trialing basic income. One group receives a basic income and another does not. Barcelona has also has been trialing UBI since October 2017. Again one group of a 1000 receives income and the second does not. Scotland will provide 250,000 pounds for a trial as well (Reynolds, Matt, 2018). American presidential candidate Andrew Yang has called for a UBI of 1000 US$ for each American citizen (Darrough, 2019).
Along with political leaders experimenting, corporate thought leaders such as Elon Musk (Weller, 2017), Richard Branson (Chapman, 2017) and Mark Zuckerberg – have also stepped in suggesting that UBI may be an idea whose time has come. In May 2017, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called on the need to consider universal basic income in America during his Harvard Commencement Speech (Haselton, 2017). ‘Every generation expands its definition of equality. Now it’s time for our generation to define a new social contract,’ Zuckerberg said. ‘We should have a society that measures progress not by economic metrics like GDP but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.’
Of course, others argue that this must be more than about income, in fact, we need a system of universal basic assets. This would reduce inequity (Fosco, 2018).
While universal basic assets is a novel, UBI is not a new idea as argued above. For decades, if not hundreds of years, it has been promulgated by various economists and politicians. Yet it has experienced a fit of renewed interest in recent years. Along with experiments in the wealthier regions of the planet s mall scale schemes have been introduced in developing nations such as Kenya and India (The Economist, 2017), and a UBI trial is being considered in Uganda (McFarland, 2016). Namibia has seen its basic income program reduce poverty by 18%, average income beyond UBI increase by 29%, and malnourishment drop by 32% (Kingma, n.d.). The idea has also been explored in Australia over the years, including in a research paper published by the Australian Government’s Parliamentary Library in late 2016.
UBI’s re-emergence on the policy agenda is driven by growing concern about permanent mass job loss as a result of automation and technological change. Stemming from the Global Financial Crisis, the ‘growing polarization of labour-market opportunities between high- and low-skill jobs, … stagnating incomes for a large proportion of households, and income inequality’ (Manyika, 2017) is leading to a loss of confidence in the future labour-market’s ability to generate enough jobs to employ the majority.
With unemployment likely built into the future, alternatives are required. And, it is not just automation but the rising peer to peer economy which can create unemployment, as we are witnessing the taxi, hotel, and now even the sex industry (Fleming, 2019).
While it can be argued that the new technologies will create new types of jobs; for example, as Leah Zahidi (2019) playfully suggests: recreationists (using genomics, 4d printing, plus AI to create species gone extinct) or Reality Rehabilitators (bringing back virtual AI addicts to the ”real world”) or sex therapists focused on robotic sex for those addicted to sex with robots…or, as likely is that because of dramatic developments in Artifical intelligence ie the fourth industrial revolution, work as we know it will disappear since humanity will live in abundance. Blue and white collar jobs will disappear.
Indeed, Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney has warned “up to 15 million of the current jobs in Britain – almost half of the 31.8 million workforce – could be replaced by robots over the coming years… entire pro- fessions such as accounting would likely disappear (Duncan, 2016). And going further, Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, argues that” before long economists [will]be worrying about a global shortage of robots” (Sharma, 2016). In Australia, The Committee for Economic Development in Australia considers 60% of all jobs in rural and regional Australia are at risk by 2030 (Tuffley, 2015).
A groundswell of advocates contend UBI is a viable policy response to the future world of work, providing a foundation to smooth working-life transitions in a gig economy (where there is a great degree of freedom to choose project work but little financial or legal support if gigs or health fails), foster creativity and innovation (Painter & Thoung, 2015), and provide an efficient alternative to labour-based, complex welfare systems that will become untenable as the labour market contracts.
Opposition to UBI contends it is a ‘dangerous idea’ (Foster, 2016), and typically centres on the high cost and economic impact of a UBI scheme, scepticism that technological change will result in the permanent, pervasive depression of the labour market, and anxiety that a UBI would be politically and economically unsustainable (Mather, 2017), particularly in a capitalist society (Foster, 2016).
The changing nature of work, increasing disparity in wealth distribution and rise of automation signals the advent of a different work and welfare environment in Australia. A UBI is unlikely to be a panacea for the future challenges of the labour market. However, if properly implemented, could a UBI be the foundation for a new social construct that preserves prosperity and equality?
Causal layered analysis (CLA) is used as a method in futures thinking to more effectively consider and understand potential futures particularly the underlying myths and metaphors that support policy and data (Inayatullah, 2015, p.2). A CLA considers four dimensions (the litany, the systemic, the worldview and the metaphor) and integrates these four levels of understanding to provide a coherent view of the future. Applying a CLA to the introduction of a UBI deepens the understanding of societal responses to develop future scenarios.
As part of an Melbourne Business School executive program at the University of Melbourne, a CLA was undertaken which contemplates a future Australia which experiences a net shift in the unemployment rate from ~6% to 30 – 40% as a result of automation, with the benefits of economic growth experienced almost exclusively by those with the highest income s rather than the community as a whole. The CLA was developed by the first author of this essay.
The CLA set out at Table 1 considered the introduction of a UBI in Australia from the perspectives of:
Table 1: Causal Layered Analysis – UBI in Australia by 2030
| Perspective | Conservative government/ corporations | Secure citizen | Insecure citizen | TRANSFORMED |
| Litany (day-to-day future, current headlines of the way things are or should be) | • Society of dole bludgers• Paying for UBI will cripple the economy
• This is communism |
• Your choices determine your future• Anyone can change their stars
• Why should I work hard to support them to sit around and do nothing |
• Corporations took my job (automation)• The system sets me up to fail – I cannot win in the current system
|
• We are all in this together• We all win if one wins
|
| System(social, economic, political causes of the issue) | • Welfare system designed around labour market (job hunting, pension schemes (unable to work due to age or disability etc.)• Competition drives innovation | • Capitalism drives economic prosperity and societal advancement• Hard work = reward
• Monetary investment is my means to climb social rungs and secure my future |
• Current welfare drives poverty line• Assessment-based approach
• Competition drives labour elimination
|
• Welfare system based on contribution to society• ‘Contributory democracy’ |
| Worldview(cognitive lenses used to understand and shape the world) | • Capitalism• Government promotes business to support economic growth and national prosperity | • Agency / free will• My talent and hard work drives my success
• I look after my own patch of turf • Welfare fatigue |
• The government should serve and protect its citizens• I have no social mobility because the system defeats me | • Egalitarian Australia (preserve the Fair Go)• Capitalism made fair
• Robots don’t need to eat |
| Myths and metaphor (the narrative) | “the invisible hand” works for all | “Work harder” – millions on welfare depend on you’ | “Scales of injustice” – poverty ascribed to the masses, wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority’ | “Share the meal” |
A successful strategy to introduce UBI in Australia thus must address the different narratives – it would need to be a broad based as strategy could be thwarted by any party This is further explored in the integrated scenario in Table 2.
Scenario planning unpacks potential futures and provides a breadth and depth of analysis to inform policy responses. While there are numerous scenario methods, we use Inayatullah’s integrated approach as it seeks to link the long term with the short term, the vision with current political reality (Inayatullah, 2015).
Building on the perspectives of the CLA, four potential future scenarios of an Australian UBI emerge (sum- marised in Table 2). These scenarios are imagined versions of the future; ‘unlike predictions or forecasts, sce- narios are stories about possible futures, about what could happen, not what will or should happen’ (Inayatullah, 2015, p.66). These were developed by the first author of this essay.
Table 2: Potential future scenarios – UBI in Australia by 2030 (Australian UBI by 2030)
| Preferred (the desired future) Share the meal
• Harmonious, altruistic society • Fosters inclusion, drives innovation and improved environmental outcomes |
Disowned (the rejected/non-negotiable future)Communism-lite
• Lack of work ethic • Global welfare mentality • Lack of social mobility and individual agency |
| Integrated (unifying the preferred and disowned futures)The new Fair Go for All
• Contributory democracy • Shifting shared value ethos from capitalism to social development and equality • Reformed welfare system and tax system • Non-work contributions valued and measured • Bi-partisan support • Rise of cooperatives |
Outlier (surprise future based on disruption)Hunger Games
• Work unattainable for the majority • Endemic poverty subsistence • Extreme wealth concentrated in a tiny minority • Societal breakdown • Civil war • Geopolitical shifts |
The preferred scenario envisages a future where the construct of capitalism is redefined and the welfare and tax system is radically overhauled, to enable a more equitable redistribution of wealth for all. This scenario envisages that with this redistribution, all citizens will have the opportunity to experience Zuckerberg’s ‘cushion for new ideas’, driving innovation, peace, true environmental stewardship and altruistic behaviours.
This scenario would likely rely on the introduction of analogous tax and welfare systems on a global scale, so corporations and wealthy citizens could not simply debunk to a country with a more advantageous system that enables disproportionate wealth generation.
The disowned future depicts ‘Communism-lite’, where a balance is unsuccessfully struck between the preserva- tion of capitalist enterprise and the emergence of a socialist state with a false economy based on 100% make-work employment.
This scenario envisages a future where Australia transitions to a pseudo- socialist state, to ensure the population is occupied and civil unrest or widespread poverty is avoided. In this scenario, the state falls prey to the pitfalls of past socialist enterprises.
The outlier scenario considers societal breakdown and unrest as a result of entrenched, interminable inequality, culminating in a civil war or revolution with an uncertain outcome at its conclusion.
This scenario envisages a future where citizens have little agency or prospects, where wealth resides with increasingly powerful corporations that generate and control profit through automated processes and robot- performed functions. Those with jobs or assets (shares, property etc.) have security; the majority subsists on welfare or contract-based employment. Without reliable, paid work for the majority, poverty or subsistence becomes endemic. There is an aching gulf between the haves and have nots, with an apparent failure of wealth redistribution (through tax systems or welfare systems), leaving the populace little prospect of social mobility and the emergence of an entrenched class or caste system.
The integrated approach contemplates a new ‘Fair Go for all’, a future in which the best intentions of the preferred and disowned futures are applied to the practical realities and constraints of democratic capitalism to engineer a reimagined state of ‘contributory democracy’, where a UBI is introduced that re-orients individuals and entities (citizens, government and private enterprise) to measure and value their contribution to that society distinct from wealth creation.
This scenario envisages a modified UBI which is not unconditional but rather, is contingent on those who could work (but cannot secure work) delivering a social contribution of some kind. An approach like this could balance the preservation of capitalism (and the agency, innovation and social mobility it enables) with a reformed welfare system that retains a measure of agency while redefining the dominant basic values that underpin Australia’s current society. It could reconcile the tension between those who work and those who don’t, by having those that do not work contributing to social progress in other ways. Redefining social constructs and values could help navigate a path to preserve Australia ‘s relatively flat class structure and its egalitarian traditions.
On medieval maps, dragons or sea monsters represent uncharted areas or dangerous waters. Realising the inte- grated future described above would require a nuanced, comprehensive policy response to navigate a course that treads new ground, preserving the benefits of capitalism yet pursuing wealth redistribution and a progressive form of social contribution.
The introduction of a successful, sustainable UBI model would be dependent on its design, as well as the design of the wider policy landscape in which it operates. Sweeping change requires foresight and anticipation. In this case, futures thinking assists in shaping the desired future by forecasting socio-political change s and the necessary repositioning of societal value. It illustrates that effective UBI introduction would require policy intervention to cast wider than welfare, education, tax and banking structure reform; policy levers would need to go further, to support the evolution of the Australian value set from foundational capitalist principles to social contribution and betterment.
Would the Australian government be able to develop a UBI prior to the foreseen dramatic job losses likely to occur through automation and developments in the peer-to-peer economy? If the response to climate change is an indicator, then most likely Australia will lag far behind other regions. The fear of dragons will overwhelm the imperative to create and innovate.
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Chapman, B. (2017, August 25). Richard Branson backs universal basic income joining Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Retrieved 18 December 2019 from The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/richard-branson-universal-basic-income-mark-zuckerberg-elon-musk-virgin-ceo-a7911866.html
Darrough, C. (2019, December 12). Andrew yang belives in UBI. here’s what his plan would really do for America. Retrieved December 18, 2019. https://www.mic.com/p/andrew-yang-believes-in-ubi-heres-what-his-plan-would-really-do-for-america-19437397
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McFarland, K. (2016, November 20). UGANDA: Two-year basic income pilot set to launch in 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2019 from http://basicincome.org/news/2016/11/uganda-two-year-basic-income-pilot-set-to-launch-in-2017/
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Reynolds, M. (2018, April 26). No, Finland isn’t scrapping its universal basic income experiment. Retrieved January 14, 2019, from Wired: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/finland-universal-basic-income-results-trial-cancelled
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The Independent. (2017, May 8). Finland’s universal basic income trial for unemployed reduces stress levels, says official. Retrieved17 December 2019 from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-universal-basic-income-trial-pilot-scheme-unemployed-stress-levels-reduced-a7724081.html
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An interview with the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, Sohail Inayatullah by Fayaz Ahmed.
Fayaz Ahmed: First of all, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
I was born in Pakistan and have lived in Bloomington, Indiana; Flushing, New York; Geneva, Switzerland; Kuala Lumpur; Malaysia; Honolulu, Hawaii; and, Mooloolaba, Australia. I live in Brisbane, Australia.
I did my doctorate from the University of Hawaii, Department of Political Science. I focused on the South Asian Philosopher, Shrii P.R. Sarkar. I examined his theory of history and vision of the future. I compared and contrasted his spiral theory of history with other macrohistorians such as Ibn Khaldun, Karl Marx, Pitirim Sorokin, Arnold Toynbee. This thesis was published by Brill in 2002 as Understanding Sarkar: The Indian Episteme, Macrohistory, and Transformative Knowledge.
With Johan Galtung, I sought to explore and integrate the western notion of linearity, development, with classical, shall we say, Asian positions of the cycle. We explored the theories of the history of twenty grand thinkers from Ssu-Ma Chien to Ibn Khaldun to Arnold Toynbee. This came out in our book, Macrohsitory and Macrohistorians. These grand patterns of social change contrasted with the trend analysis I was seeing in conventional Futures Studies. Trends overly stated continuation, while macrohistory sought to move towards an understanding of the grander patterns, past and future. They add realism – though not with the straight jacket of geo-politics – to scenarios, which while useful in exploring alternatives, can be fanciful.
I also worked for the Hawaii Judiciary for a decade in Honolulu. We developed the Court’s foresight program, anticipating future trends and issues that could impact the courts. We explored the rise of attorneys, mediation, the rights of robots, the use of artificial intelligence in the Courts, the need for a specialized Science Court to address the exponential increase in technologies.
Cover pages of book and article on Judicial futures
Fayaz Ahmed: Please tell us about your role as Chair in Futures Studies at UNESCO and why it was established?
UNESCO has a global chair system, to spread and integrate knowledge. My role as the Chair of Futures Studies is to move foresight from a strategy of planting seeds of change to growing these trees, to creating a forest of foresight. This is to help develop the foresight capabilities of individuals, organizations, and indeed, the planet. Futures literacy is the ability to read the future with greater effectiveness so that tomorrow’s problems can be solved today; so that emergent opportunities can be used to enhance well-being. Prevention of disease, of calamities, of social problems, is crucial in this work.
https://en.unesco.org/events/transforming-future-seminar-futures-literacy-latin-america
The notion is moving global, national and organizational policymaking based on anticipatory sciences instead of, as Ian Lowe argues, “organized superstition” – policymaking based on the whims of political leaders. We ask what is changing, what is the same, and what should change, and what should not. Thanks to the intervention of Riel Miller UNESCO has numerous chairs in the field, in Futures Studies, anticipatory systems, organizational futures, futures literacy, and more.
Fayaz Ahmed: In 2010, Shaping Tomorrow Foresight Network awarded you with the Laurel award for all-time best futurist, tell us a bit about this award and why they chose you?
Colleagues were generous. The network chooses colleagues who have made unusual contributions or who are unusual themselves. I believe this was perhaps from research work on
1. Causal layered analysis, a theory of knowledge that assumes four levels of reality. The litany or day-to-day. The system or the next level of causation. The worldview or deeper perspectives of stakeholders (the Chair, the CEO, workers, partners, competitors) or stages of time (ancient, modernity, postmodernity). And at the deepest level are myths and metaphors. This approach ensures there is depth, not just breath to foresight.
2. Macrohistory – the grand patterns of history, as a tool to understand our changing world.
3. Narrative foresight – the use of stories for individual and organizational transformation. It is this latter work that I focus mostly on these days. This is especially satisfying working with individuals. As the world changes, figuring out our role, how to manage this change, flow with this change becomes increasingly difficult. One CEO commented, he no longer knows what is expected of him, how he is to act. Seeing life as a tennis court, he said he was an expert on hard courts, but now when he goes to a meeting he no longer knows which court he is to play on. Is it grass? Is it clay? Will there even be a court? We worked together to develop a new metaphor, storyline – this was the person who could play on many courts. Practically, this meant, learning new skills for a changing world: emotional literacy, technological literacy, and spiritual intelligence.
At another meeting, a young detective described his time on the force as being “an iPhone in a room full of Nokias.” This narrative, unfortunately, while true, set him apart from older detectives. He changed his narrative to the far more useful, “co-designed chip maker.” In this story, he would work with others and co-create strategies using new technologies. This shifted his world from hierarchy and difference to a flatter space of inclusion.
Fayaz Ahmed: What is very exciting about working as a futurist and what does a futurist do?
We get to help others and in that process change ourselves. We work with different groups of all ages around the world. These include the very important – Prime Ministers, CEOs, Chairs of executive boards, to the powerless, children, and others whose concerns for the future need to be heard, understood and acted on. We always ask in foresight interventions, who is missing in the room, whose voice do we need to hear. And, how can we best listen to the voices of future generations
Futures work has a clear structure. I use the Six Pillars approach. In this we first map out the past and the vision of the future. Then we ask what might disrupt that image. Then we search for the levers of change, how to use change for change. Then we go deeper, moving to the core stories, powerful metaphors of transformation. Then we manage uncertainty through scenarios. Finally, we focus on transformation, on how to make the vision real, how to use the future to change.
Futures work does not get boring because we deal with authentic concerns, real issues humans face. For example, recently at a meeting in a drought infected area, we went through a process that attempted to understand the futures of that area, the Granite Belt.
We first examined the used future of the Granite Belt. This was the view that water was plentiful and that would continue with the same agriculture paradigm. We then explored the disruptions – focusing on a long term drought and a decline in entitlements. From here we explored scenarios linked with guiding narratives. The historical past was the Food Bowl. But climate change was threatening this history. This would lead to the Dust Bowl – the deadening of the region. This would result in an exodus, with the likely future being the begging bowl, with Granite Belt residents leaving the region and moving to Brisbane as climate change refugees. They would be second class citizens there – poorer in need of help, and susceptible to politicians using migrants from other parts of the world as political fodder to divide the community. The last scenario was the Green bowl. This was the preferred future. In the backcasting and next steps part, we worked on strategies including permaculture, water from the air, water efficiency, green design, cooperatives, a federal government where science decided policy instead of, as environmentalist Ian Lowe suggested, “organized superstition.” The session concluded with an inner guided visioning session where individuals focused on their own calling and strategy.
FOUR SCENARIOS FOR THE GRANITE BELT
| Granite Belt | Dustbowl | Begging Bowl | Green Bowl |
| Traditional agriculture | Primary implications of Climate change | Secondary implications of climate change | Results if action is taken |
| Water everywhere | Slow death | Second class citizens | Green design |
What is exciting then is looking at how individuals and communities can create preferred futures. How they can move from the disarray and turmoil of the present to a different world. This is not the search for the utopia, but as my own mentor James Dator has written – the creation of a eutopia, a good society. A good society is aware of its contradictions, understands that each situation, each phase in history creates the seeds of its destruction.
And as Riel Miller has argued, Futures Studies helps us understand novelty, but also contingency. It creates tools and methods to optimize strategy. However, for me, as Miller would agree, visioning or creating the preferred is as important. Indeed, Futures Studies is about challenging today and creating a different tomorrow. It is not just about analyzing reality by mapping the world we see, but changing the world we see, both through epistemology – ways of knowing – and ontology, the world that is, as it is.
Fayaz Ahmed: Why do we need futures thinking and how can this way of thinking help us transform the present as well as the future?
Futures, as I have learned from Michel Foucault and Michael Shapiro, is about creating an epistemological distance from the present. The future helps to see the present anew, it makes the present remarkable. Scenarios, understood in this way, are less about the contingency of clarifying alternatives, and more about transforming today. They help us see what is right and wrong about today, and what a new future can be. The present, as we know, is highly politicized with actors fighting over the present, using fake news, bots, and other weapons of knowledge to allow their interests to win over others. It is a quicksand morass where few come out alive. While we need to be aware of contemporary politics, futures suggest we also need to ensure we are imagining different realities, different worlds.
The three horizons approach is very useful. The third horizon is the long term – the space of visioning the impossible, the truly desired. The second horizon is the space of uncertainty and of creative destruction, where the new emerges and the past is still alive. The Six Pillars approach helps in his space – it maps, anticipates, times, deepens, explores alternatives, and transforms. The first horizon is present and the next few years – this the space of current problems with seeds of change suggesting direction change.
Most recently, working with the Centre for Strategy and Policy Studies, the three horizons were incredibly useful. The first horizon was the reality of young people being employed and leaving the nation for jobs elsewhere. The second horizon was uncertain – could the nation create new jobs in digital and green tourism? Could foreign direct investment create new start-ups focused on tropical innovation? Horizon three was more focused on the implications of robotics and artificial intelligence creating a society where only a few worked or work was just for a few hours a day. We pondered what a universal basic income would look like for the nation. We also asked what would be appropriate bottom-lines for the nation beyond GDP?
Fayaz Ahmed: But if futures thinking is so important, why don’t more people do it?
There are numerous reasons:
1. Our brains are wired for the past, we have to train the brain to understand possible and emergent futures.
2. Futures literacy takes time and effort as any skill. We do not invest in this skill. Schools are already busy teaching too many subjects.
3. It could be that we are still collectively in the “rush.” By this I mean we are like teenagers, unable to deeply reflect, looking for the latest high, not responsible, broken up into tribes. We are not adults who have learned from the past, who have a developed brain, who take prevention seriously. We do not have global governance structures where anticipation is built into what they do. And,
4. Finally, the education level of many leaders is low – they are in power not because of their understanding of science and possibility, but because they use fear to stay in power. Ivana Milojević has been doing cutting edge research in this area, called Futures Fallacies.
Ivana Milojević. Picture by Sohail Inayatullah. Brisbane, March 2019.
Fayaz Ahmed: Yes, that makes sense. So what then are the basics of futures thinking.
In my work, there are a number of core concepts. These are:
1. The used future – what we are doing that does not work but we continue to use it. Used futures are built into our ways of thinking and institutional practices. They ensure failure. For example, the factory model of education where surveillance and standardization are primary, instead of the co-creation of knowledge. They also keep the system safe from innovations that may doom.
2. The disruption – what is likely to change. For example, the implications of artificial intelligence on work and the futures of work
3. Scenarios or alternative futures. Given the rise of AI, what are our teaching and learning futures we can ask? In scenario one, the no-change future, we can teach and train for the 1950s. In scenario two, the marginal change scenario, we engage in catching up – learning to code and learn a few more languages. In scenario three, the adaptive future, we scan the changing world and develop national or organizational strategies to adapt and lead, for example, energy solutions, in 3D printing, in peer to peer energy platforms, in therapeutic robotics, in aged care, and in conflict resolution skills. In the last scenario, the radical future, we explore a world after work – how to do we teach and train for a world where jobs have practically disappeared because of technological disruptions.
4. The preferred future – which future do we truly want.
5. The supportive narrative – what is the metaphor that will align with the strategy to help create the desired vision. For example, one employment agency had as its metaphor – bludgeoned by the present. They were so caught up in the day to day – horizon one -they could not see the future. They changed their metaphor to a flock of eagles. Within this narrative, they could see emerging opportunities and are now playing a national role in the conversation and strategy around work futures.
Fayaz Ahmed: What then are the main tools and methods needed for structured futures thinking?
As discussed above, I use the Six Pillars approach. In the mapping phase, the most useful is the futures triangle. The triangle has a quantitative aspect (the pushes of the present), a qualitative aspect (the weight of history) and a visual aspect (the pull of the preferred future).
In the anticipation phase, my preferred method is the Molitor s-curve or emerging issues analysis. Instead of focusing on the current problem or trends we focus on disruptions, emerging issues. For example, twenty-five years ago, while most researchers were focused on over-population, we were writing on de-population in European and East Asian nations as well as the anticipated dramatic shift in the worker-retiree ratio in China. In the 1980s, we explored the rise of China to the number one status by 2020. In the 1990s and early 2000s, we were exploring the shift from traditional meat to the new meat (in-vitro meat, cellular agriculture). Of course, with emerging issues analysis insofar as the issues explored have low supporting data points one can easily be wrong, and if policymakers act in a preventive way, they can ensure that the issue does not become a trend and problem, i.e. they can solve tomorrow’s problems today.
In the Timing phase, the best tool is macrohistory less as a theory of time, but as a diagnostic, asking which parts of the organization are exhibiting linear patterns, which part cyclical, which part pendulum and is there the possibility of spiral transformation, where progress plus tradition are critically combined. I also use the Sarkar game, a process invented by Voros and Hayward based on the work of P.R. Sarkar. In this game, we explore how power is used and attempt to have actors create a successful society by working with each other and by developing leadership skills where they serve others, are protective, create novel ideas, and use finances for the good of all.
Image based on the work of Peter Hayward and Joe Voros (2006).
In the Deepening phase, I use Causal layered analysis. We dig deeper beyond the headlines and attempt to understand the core issue for the organization. We then move into the transformation phase, creating the new metaphor. For example, with many energy organizations, they know well that they need to begin to understand the shift from fossil fuels to renewables. CLA has helped energy companies in Europe, Africa, South-East Asia, and Australia make this transformation. Here is an example of CLA in action from five years ago.
By executives at a course on Futures Thinking and Strategy Development, Melbourne, September 2016
In the CLA process, while all levels are important, the metaphor is crucial in ensuring that there is an overall story that can drive the organization. One large corporation seeing the need for flexibility in the energy markets argued that today they were like a rusting tanker and in the future they wished to be like Optimus Prime – a flexible and adaptive leader.
Another suggested that there were now the pretenders, with great visions that no one believed in. In the future, they wished to be like an energy genie, anticipating and delivering on the changing needs of citizens.
By participants of futures of energy workshop, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 15, 2018
The key, however, is to link the new story with a new strategy. In this CLA done recently in Brunei, participants imagined a new health future for themselves. The burning platform was the rise of obesity in the country.
| TODAY | 2030 | |
| LITANY | The second most obese nation in the region. | A regional leader in health indicators – Number 1. |
| SYSTEMIC | High standard of living with plentiful food.Subsidized rice.Dormant lifestyle. | Taxation on sugar and oil and a reduction of rice subsidies. Incentives to grow one’s own food. Move toward plant-based diet and reduce meat-eating. Encourage natural and organic foods. |
| WORLDVIEW | Rice culture | Health centric-culture |
| MYTH-METAPHOR |  |
 |
CLA by participants at Center for Strategy and Policy Studies, Brunei, February 29, 2020. Picture by Sohail Inayatullah
The CLA process works at the external level, but equally so for inner development. Recently a marketing executive used the process to transform his life story. He wrote:
“The rebel archetype has permeated my sense of self as far as some of my earliest childhood memories. I have always felt the “Abrahamic tension” of a man going against the world to eventually change it. That was my metaphor until I engaged in the CLA of the self process. I learnt that a better, more realistic yet hopeful alternative was possible. That was when I realized that interdependence with like-minded individuals and organizations was a more viable path. That was also when, to my son’s delight, I decided to become one of the Avengers – the rebel yet heroic spirit enabled by fluid partnerships. It’s been over a year since my encounter with the inner CLA process, and the metaphor has since materialized. I’ve changed and the world around me has changed with that.”
Another person used the CLA process to explore his/her health. That person changed the life story from feed chicken to fighting chicken.
| TODAY | NEW FUTURE | |
| LITANY表象層 | I am a healthy person (with a little higher blood sugar).我是一個健康的人 (只是血糖偏高) | I know how to control my blood sugar to keep myself in healthy condition.我曉得如何控制血糖以維持自己身體的健康 |
| SYSTEM系統層 | I have maintained good health by some exercise (hiking and walking) and light dinner (only vegetarian foods).我透過適度的運動及蔬食的晚餐來維持目前的身體健康 | People with high blood sugar should have different diets (low-carbohydrate diets and sufficient water) and more exercise. 高血糖者有不同的飲食習慣 (低碳水化合物飲食 + 充分的水) 及更多的運動 |
| WORLDVIEW世界觀觀 | Moderate exercises and a balanced diet can keep one person in good health. People should not be picky eaters. Having delicious foods is one of the joys of life.適度運動與均衡飲食是維持健康最關鍵的要素人不應該偏食美食是人生樂趣之一 | Patients should follow doctors’ advice: picky eating is a must for patientsI’d rather give up some delicious foods to avoid taking medicine. Delicious foods can be explored. Exploring delicious foods for high blood sugar people can be a new joy of life.病人必須聽醫生的話：病人必須偏食我寧可少吃點美食，也不想吃藥美食是可以開發的，開發高血糖者的美食可以成為人生的新樂趣 |
| METAPHOR隱喻隱喻 | Feed Chicken 飼料雞(Eat to die) | Fighting Chicken 鬥雞(Fight to Live – fighting against diabetes) |
Another person in the midst of a cancer diagnosis changed her story from “life is like a black hole” to “life is like a shining light.”
In the Creating Alternatives phase, we develop scenarios. While there are many scenarios methods – bivariate, organizational, archetypal – the one I use the most is integrated. With Jose Ramos and Rob Burke, we have developed this extensively.
Robert Burke, Melbourne Business School. September 17, 2018. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah
The first scenario is preferred. The second scenario is the disowned, what one cannot see, what one has pushed into the unconscious. The third scenario is the integrated – this united the first and the second. The last is the outlier scenario. One policy advisor, for example, used this to explore regional futures. In her preferred future, there is a considerable investment, population shift, and economic growth in regional centers in her state. However, as she discussed this with workshop participants, it became clear that most prefer to live in city centers – jobs, economies of scale, global airports, and cultural diversity make the center far more inviting. Her preferred future seemed more like a pipe-dream. In the integrated scenario, she focused on “Leadership through stars” that is, choosing a few regional cities to focus her funding on. Once these were successful, then she could move to finance the entire region. Her last scenario was “Ghost towns” i.e. climate change and other factors making living in regional areas impossible. She, of course, could have focused on the opposite i.e., because of 5 and 6g, true population distribution could result in everyone working remotely.
The last pillar is Transformation. In this, we develop a shared vision and use backcasting to create it. Along with backcasting are action learning experiments. For example, an organization may have a new vision. However, the transition to that vision can be difficult. Action learning takes a few experiments with real funding and develops those experiments. They become the bridge to the new future. Action learning works well as change is within one zone of control, in areas one can make a difference. Having a backcast where all change-events external – market crash, a war, a technological breakthrough – is interesting but not overly useful for creating plausible change. Backcasting creates the bridge between today and tomorrow.
Backcasting at Melbourne Business School, December 2019.
The final step is the inner visioning. In this process, we take individuals and have them meet a mentor from the future or their future self. This self gives advice, offers gifts, and guides the person from the desired future to the present.
With all these processes, the goal is to make the desired future, more real and lived.
One senior government executive told me recently, a decade ago, they would send Ministers and policy researchers around the world to see what were the latest innovations. For them, seeing was believing. Now that they were the world’s number one, believing was seeing. There is nowhere to visit, but their imagination.
I have recently been writing on a stage theory of foresight – to meet the person where they are at. For example, I find that if a group feels disempowered, then visioning or metaphors will feel like fairy tales. It is first important to use CLA to unpack power and possibility. Action learning processes that enhance power – that moves from fatalism to anger that creates change – are equally powerful. Once this is done, then organizations prefer to about risk mitigation – how do they keep their new found power or wealth. Tools like emerging issues analysis are excellent here. From disruption, we can move toward scenarios which can enhance opportunity creation. Once we have done this, then I can move toward directionality, where do we wish to be. I then move to make the vision real – through backcasting and action learning. Then I find the supportive metaphor. The narrative helps in making a supporting reality. Finally, I use the CLA of the self process to aid in personal transformation. Recently, using the work of the late Dada Prana, I use sacred sound or mantra to help create a metaphor that represents the deepest part of the psyche.
Fayaz Ahmed: Given that the future of the world is inseparable from the future of energy. What role can futures thinking play in developing a new energy development model, compatible with environmental and climatic goals?
https://anandamargasociety.com/yoga-mediation-teachers/the-voyage-of-dada-pranakrsnananda
As with the examples above, futures thinking is crucial as an asset to help in the energy transition. As Sohail Hasnie paraphrasing Sheikh Yamani has said, “it is not due to a lack of stone that the stone age ended”. Yamani could see the end of the oil era, not necessarily the end of oil. Similarly, for futurists, we are likely at the end of multiple eras – the end of patriarchy, the nation-state; fossil fuel; meat; American-centrism; and one way of knowing. Instead, we see the possible transition to 1. A global governance system certainly a planetary wide anticipatory system. 2 A shift from meat to protein. 3 A move toward gender partnership; 4. A move toward Asia as the center and 5. And the possibility of neohumanism, or identity that is planetary, not ego or nation or religion-based.
However, as we know from Sorokin there are pendulum swings, fight-backs from the old era. In one nation, when we were working on the national energy plan, it became clear we needed to shift from nuclear and fossil fuel to solar and wind. And then develop continent-wide peer to peer solar energy sharing platforms. The project had excited everyone, however, the CEO was soon indicted for corruption for allegedly taking bribes from the nuclear industry. And as the previous head of the European Parliament stated – we know what the right thing to do is – with respect to climate change – but we can’t get elected on it.
I am confident we will make the transition. Not making it, is too horrible to contemplate, as we are seeing today with the global rise of fascism.
We must imagine and create a different future. Futures Studies can assist in this process.
About the Authors
Dr. Sohail Inayatullah is a Professor at Tamkang University, Taiwan; Adjunct Professor, the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, and Associate, Melbourne Business School, the University of Melbourne, Australia; Director www.metafuture.org. He can be contacted at sohail@metafuture.org
Fayaz Ahmed is an energy engineer, PMI, Lausanne, Switzerland. He blogs at fzahmad.com/blog.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Dator, James.1974. “Neither There nor Then: A eutopian alternative to the development model of Future Society.” In Masini Eleonora (Ed.) Human Futures. London: IPC Science and Technology Press.
Dator, James. ed. 2002. Advancing Futures Studies: Futures Studies in Higher Education. Westport: Praeger.
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon
Hayward, Peter and Joseph Voros. 2006. “Playing the neohumanist game”. In Sohail
Inayatullah, Marcus Bussey & Ivana Milojevic (Eds.), Neohumanist educational
futures: liberating the pedagogical intellect (283-296). Taipei, Taiwan: Tamkang University.
Galtung, Johan and Sohail Inayatullah. 1997. Macrohistory and Macrohistorians. Westport: Praeger.
Inayatullah, Sohail. 2002. Understanding Sarkar. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Inayatullah, Sohail. 2008. “Six Pillars: Futures Thinking for Transformation.” Foresight 10 (1): 4–21
Inayatullah, Sohail. 2017. “Teaching and Learning in Disruptive Futures: Automation, Universal
Basic Income, and Our Jobless Futures.” Knowledge Futures 1 (1).
Inayatullah, Sohail. 2015. What Works: Case Studies in the Practice of Foresight. Tamsui:
Tamkang University Press.
Inayatullah, Sohail and Ivana Milojević. 2015. CLA 2.0: Transformative Research in Theory and
Practice. Tamsui: Tamkang University Press.
Miller, Riel. 2018. Transforming the Future. London: Routledge
Milojević, Ivana and Sohail Inayatullah. 2015. “Narrative Foresight.” Futures 73:151–162.
Molitor, Graham. 2003. “Molitor Forecasting Model.” Journal of Futures Studies 8 (1): 61–72.
Is this a Black Swan?
Our colleague Louis Zheng from the Shanghai FuturistCircle suggested that no one had predicted COVID 19 Coronavirus. “Is it a black swan?” he asked.[1]
www.jfsdigital.org. Accessed 17 March 2020.
Our response was that this is not a black swan, as a black swan event is defined as being unpredictable, a total surprise. The reason this coronavirus is not a black swan is that the emergence of another coronavirus was predicted by many working in the emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) field. Indeed, we argue that we need to be getting ready for the next “Corona”.
The predictability is on a number of fronts.
1. The increasing rate of emerging EIDs is well recorded in the scientific literature (Morse 1995).
2. Many agreed for some time that the most likely severe EIDs would be caused by single-stranded RNA viruses (as these have high rates of mutation) and would emerge from animals. This simply reflects the recognition that more than 70% of recent EID events have their origins in animals (they are zoonotic) with most originating principally from wildlife (Jones et al. 2008).
3. Coronaviruses were high on the list of likely candidates for causing an EID event. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emerged in 2003, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012 – both caused by novel coronaviruses (Fan et al. 2019).
4. Bats as a likely source of viruses causing EIDs have also been well recognized in the scientific literature (Olival et al. 2017).
5. Research on both SARS and zoonotic avian influenza identified infection spillover pathways that most often included ‘wet markets’ where live animals are frequently sold and slaughtered on site. In the case of zoonotic influenza, the spread of the virus to people was from poultry at live bird markets (i.e. wet market). For SARS, the initial spillover event occurred at a wet market containing wildlife when people were exposed to civets that were shedding the SARS coronavirus (Webster 2004). Although there has been work in trying to change wet markets (FAO 2015) and in some countries stop wet markets—especially where many species, including wildlife mix—this change has been difficult due to a range of social, economic and cultural factors. We anticipate in the short run these factors will reduce in importance, but insofar as “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” they are likely to return without global institutional and cultural shifts.
All the above was known before COVID 19, so people working in the EID space were not surprised. The exact timing of emergence was not predicted, but nonetheless, the emergence of a novel coronavirus associated with wet markets containing wildlife was not unexpected at all (Fan et al. 2019).
Foresight, of course, is not about exact timing – that is market investment and stock trading. This is about creating the capacity to anticipate tomorrow’s problems and act today. Thus, the seeds of the Corona, the weak signals, have been present for a decade.
Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast
Why then with this information are we now in the middle of an epidemic? Colleagues in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) suggest that: Firstly, “it is related deeply to the Chinese eating culture – preference for fresh meat from animals butchered at the counter”. Secondly, the memories of food crises in China remain. Third, there continues to be a level of mistrust of the government. For example, “residents have little knowledge of the frozen meat-producing process due to the lack of information transparency, thus, some ignore the regulations of the live animal ban in the wet markets.” They are bounty hunters, focused on wealth creation, irrespective of the costs to the overall society.
Furthermore, many from rural areas live in the ancient episteme where the “liveness” of the animal leads to greater health as one is “eating” life. Thus, the initial lack of response speed can be explained not just by a culture where informing supervisors equates with a fear of losing one’s job – but because parts of China live in different times. An ancient worldview, a communist worldview, and now a globalist worldview. Certainly since the initial issue of transparency emerged, China’s response has been robust and dynamic. The speed of virus infection has been dramatically reduced, giving the rest of the world a chance to mitigate.
Social problems emerge, or are difficult to address, where there are varying perspectives – each often in tension with others. Interests and strategies are at locked horns or drawing the carriage in different directions.
This is illustrated in the Causal Layered Analysis (Inayatullah and Milojević, 2015) below. Six meta-perspectives are critical – the views from those who sell in wet markets; the views of those in the political bureaucracy (this helps explain the rise of COVID-19 in China early on in the outbreak and Iran, for example); the current strategy of slowing down the virus – the Medieval; the Pharma perspective; the Market; and of course, the Citizen.
| Wet market | Political bureaucracy | Public health | Pharma | Economic | Citizen | |
| Litany | Continued wet markets | Information about disease not shared | Slow down the virus so systems can survive | Enlist medical and health systems to create the cure | Economic indicators – recession on the way | Fear and panic |
| System | Jobs in tension with the need to eliminate them.Outside of the law. | Job – fear of reprisal from those above | Quarantine,Social distancing,
Surveillance, Lockdown, Flatten the curve. Use apps and Artificial Intelligence (AI) |
Find the vaccine.Vaccinate all.
Using new technologies to speed up solutions |
Profits and interconnected systems cause downward pressure.Uncertainty driving market volatility. | Citizens looking for direction. Leaders uncertain of how to balance the economy and public health. |
| Worldview | Economic – wealth accumulation | Political – authoritarian | Medieval-Safety | Pharmaceutical – plus AI plus to some extent public health | Capitalist – markets | Citizen prefer flatter systems, but search for expertise |
| Myth/metaphor | “Bounty hunters”
“Show me the money” |
“The big man” | “Breaking the chain of infection”“Slow down the fire” | “Silver bullet” | “Where to hide” – “opportunities everywhere” | “Whom do I trust” |
Thus part of the challenge of a global response is that there are multiple worldviews operating, all with different interests.
While CLA helps us to understand the varying perspectives, scenarios help us address alternative trajectories.
What Then Are The Scenarios?
Based on the hundreds of articles, we see at least four possible futures. [2]
1. Zombie Apocalypse (CDC 2020). This future emerges because of the mutation of the virus plus xenophobia plus panic. Uncertainty leads to continued market crashes. Supply chains, tourism, travel, and conferences are all disrupted. A severe and long term recession, if not depression, results. Failure to act leads to a number of regime changes, as in Iran and the USA, to begin with. Wherever there are system stresses, they break. This is certainly how the future feels to many. The memory of earlier plagues remains at the inter-generational level. Fear and panic rule.
Image from https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm
2. The Needed Pause. Efforts are made in most countries to ‘flatten the curve’ to help health systems cope. In the future, COVID-19 becomes just another winter flu – dangerous as it is for the elderly and those who smoke. It is, however, solved and routinized within a year. Big Pharma sees the money-making opportunity and by 2021 a vaccine is available. In the meantime, the frenetic pace of everything slows down, with multiple benefits to the planet and personal health. Greenhouse gas emissions fall, for starters. Over-touristed cities like Venice get a break. Localization heals. People focus on their inner lives. More and more people meditate. For a short period working from home becomes the norm. However, states still do not support employees in this process as trust is a factor. Thus, after the pause, back to business as usual. We slowed down in order to speed up again.
Flattening the curve. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/926806. Accessed 17 March 2020.
3. Global Heath Awakening. Large AI companies, science, start-ups, and public health expertise come to the rescue. We truly enter the digital fourth wave era – genomics plus AI help monitor and then prevent. The five ‘p’ health model – prevention, precision, participation, partnership, and personalization become the norm. There is a breakthrough after breakthrough with innovation (real-time detection, health monitoring using big data) cascading through the system. While the virus began in China, the nation leads in innovation as it is forced to adapt. Toynbee’s creative minority via open-source science and technology lead the way. Working from home booms as new relationships between employer and employee are created. Universal basic income is supported as the strength of a society is based on how we treat the weakest; not how we glorify the strongest. Young people are no longer the future, but the present. This the disruption that truly creates the fourth industrial revolution. Along with external innovation, there is inner innovation – a social revolution. Evidence-based science and technology inform public policy; not the whims of particular leaders. The insights from fighting Covid 19 are applied to climate change. There is a dramatic shift to plant-based diets. It is business transformed, social mutation,[3] not back to usual. There are, however, concerns about privacy.
https://in5d.com/the-global-awakening/. Accessed 11 March 2020
4. The Great Despair. Not an apocalypse, not a depression, no magic – just a slow and marked decline of health and wealth. Walls appear everywhere. The World Health Organization and others try to contain, but the virus repeatedly slips in and infects the bodies, minds, and hearts of all. Back to the European Middle Ages. The efforts to address fail. The least connected to globalization fare the best. The vulnerable are forgotten. Inter-generational memory of past pandemics inform.
https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/06plague.htm
Depending on one’s worldview the future looks very different. Certainly, the first scenario represents emotional fears. The Needed pause and Alibaba magic are based on breakthroughs in science and technology by Big pharma and Tech with varying levels of individual and social intervention. The Great Despair represents a failure to wisely act.
Conclusion And Next Steps
To prevent the next outbreak, first, a global ban on wet markets and trade in wildlife with real help to transition sellers so they are not impoverished. This is a huge undertaking as both the number of people involved in the wildlife trade and its global economic value are enormous. China’s wildlife industry alone is valued at $74 billion USD. However, the cost to China of this outbreak will be many times larger than this, even if only taking account of losses associated with tourism and consumer spending (Machalaba and Kartesh 2020).
However, there are potential barriers: Even though banning wildlife trade may make economic sense, there could be a cultural backlash – ‘Why should I have to live without access to the foods that make me strong. This is the West dictating too much about my lifestyle!’
Irrespective of the success of banning the wet markets and trade in wildlife, the economic costs of this COVID 19 pandemic will be debated and analyzed in great detail. The argument will most likely be made to invest in the same strategies that were suggested post-SARS, and the influenza H1N1 pandemic of 2009 — strategies that were only partially funded and implemented. That is, there will be a support to continue with the status quo and steady the ship by ensuring countries can all meet the International Health Regulations and ‘manage’ the next epidemic or pandemic challenge.
Second, there should be increased interest in detecting disease, even earlier, especially in areas of increased risk of emergence and disease spillover. This will likely support full investment in new technologies such Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), Big Data, AI and AI combined apps that can detect diseases.
https://bizedge.co.nz/story/the-tech-on-the-frontlines-of-the-fight-against-covid-19. Accessed 17 March 2020.
Third —and critically—will be the increased investment in real prevention strategies that acknowledge that the majority of zoonotic pathogens have emerged as a result of changes to food production, agriculture, land use and contact with wildlife (Allen et al. 2017). This could result for example, in the creation of buffer zones between wildlife and human settlements, or cost-benefit studies of new agricultural projects and land-use change that take into account increased EID risk, such as COVID 19. Even more fundamentally, real prevention strategies will mean re-thinking the current “more, more, more” development model. Taking an Eco-health view, we argue that Nature strikes back. Always.
https://loonylabs.org/2015/06/27/buffer-zones-humans/ Accessed 11 March 2020.
In conclusion: this crisis is a health crisis but, of course, it is much more. It is https://j-galt.com/accutane-30mg/ about leadership and governance , about what type of world we wish to live in. It is a test of the creation of a planetary civilization, working together to solve problems.
If we do not succeed, the next ‘Corona’ is just around the corner.
About the Authors
Sohail Inayatullah, UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, USIM, Professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan and Associate, Melbourne Business School, the University of Melbourne. sinayatullah@gmail.com. www.metafuture.org
Dr. Peter Black, One Health Foresight Consultant and Veterinary Epidemiologist peter@essentialforesight.com www.essentialforesight.com
Special thanks to Russell Clemens for copy editing the manuscript
References
Allen, T., Murray, K.A., Zambrana-Torrelio, C. et al. Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases. Nat Commun 8, 1124 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00923-8
Inayatullah, Sohail and Ivana Milojević. 2015. CLA 2.0: Transformative Research in Theory and Practice. Tamsui: Tamkang University Press
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Zombie Preparedness. https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm Accessed 11 March 2020.
Fan, Y.; Zhao, K.; Shi, Z.-L.; Zhou, P. Bat Coronaviruses in China. Viruses 2019, 11, 210
Jones, K., Patel, N., Levy, M. et al. Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature 451, 990–993 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06536
Inayatullah, Sohail and Ivana Milojević. 2015. CLA 2.0: Transformative Research in Theory and Practice. Tamsui: Tamkang University Press
Machalaba, C and Karesh B Fight Pandemics Like Wildfires With Prevention and a Plan to Share the Costs, Foreign Affairs (6 March 2020)
Morse SS. Factors in the Emergence of Infectious Diseases. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 1995;1(1):7-15. doi:10.3201/eid0101.950102
Olival, K., Hosseini, P., Zambrana-Torrelio, C. et al. Host and viral traits predict zoonotic spillover from mammals. Nature 546 646–650 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22975
Webster, R. Wet markets—a continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza?:The Lancet, 363, Issue 9404, 17 January 2004, 234-236
United Nations Food and Agriculture Oganisation (FAO 2015) Biosecurity guide for live poultry markets. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5029e.pdf. Accessed 13 March 2020
This interview with Sohail Inayatullah explores four possible futures after the COVID-19 crisis. It refers to the article he published together with epidemiologist Peter Black in the Journal of Future Studies “A Black Swan Nor A Zombie Apocalypse: The Futures Of A World With The Covid-19 Coronavirus” (https://jfsdigital.org/2020/03/18/nei…)
Full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amnCrF5FKfU&list=PLW7Bpux_zmBQK2KVgF-aqPLWQciHQA5yN
Beyond The Paradox Podcast
Release Date: 04/21/2020
Host Juanique Randall speaks to Sohail Inayatullah, inaugural Chair of UNESCO’s Futures Unit and creator of Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) about his technique, used in strategic planning and futurology to more effectively shape our future through narrative.
By Sohail Inayatullah, Puruesh Chaudhary, Syed Sami Raza and Umar Sheraz
It was late January when four Pakistanis studying in China tested positive to the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the disease known as COVID-19. Internally, the country reported its first two COVID-19 cases on February 26, 2020, both of which had returned from Iran. Pakistan, as of April 29, had reported 14,885 confirmed cases with 3,425 recoveries and 327 deaths.[i]
While the pandemic continues to spread, Pakistan faces other critical issues as well. For example, from 8 July to 12 November, there were 47,000 confirmed cases of dengue with 75 deaths. [ii] Moreover, twenty-four percent still live below the poverty line. [iii]
While in Islamabad in early March, I asked the guard at the SafaGold Mall why he did not have hand sanitizer or temperature scanners, as I had seen in Singapore. He stared at me with a puzzled look. I explained to him that COVID-19 was on its way to Pakistan. Another guard came by, and soon we had a conversation that went nowhere: they were ready for the Taliban and other extremists, not a virus. Geopolitics and the long war on terror had framed the national narrative. A virus is not an enemy, cannot be imprisoned, nor does it provide the opportunity to create patriotic songs that focus on national sentiments.
But the inter-generational memory of pandemics is there. A few years back, while asking about my mother’s family history, she told me that she had never met her grandmother. I was surprised and asked why; she told me she died in her late teens from the plague. The last plague epidemic in British India broke out in 1896, imported from Hong Kong.[iv] Eventually, over a 31-year period, 13 million died.[v] As the British attempted to control the plague, riots broke out across the country.[vi] What will happen this time if COVID-19 spreads? Moreover, is Pakistan at all prepared for such a spread?
Futurist Puruesh Chaudhary writes that not just COVID-19 but also climate change, internal and external debt, and other crises are coming. “In my work with Agahi and the Pakistan State of the Future Index, we suggested that a pandemic could re-occur in Pakistan. When we published a policy exercise, ‘The Future of Possibilities’ in 2019[vii], participants identified the emergence of a pandemic that could severely impact the country’s future.” However, futures work is still not seriously used in the corridors of institutional power. They are focused, as are most governments, on actions that ensure votes in the next elections.
Currently, Pakistan, like the rest of the world, is engaged in the “hammer and dance”[viii] strategy – that is, hit the pandemic hard with lockdowns and then as economic livelihood, mental health and travel become more important, go back and forth between restrictions and movement. However, the strictness of these lockdowns is being challenged, especially by the religious right.
Modeling remains unclear how many Pakistanis could potentially be affected by this virus. Chaudhary writes: “A huge population (nearly two hundred million), inadequate health care systems, capability gaps, lack of accountability, and our failure to imagine multiple possibilities is our biggest misfortune. There is a pattern to how Pakistan responds to crises, and this outbreak is no different. Many of the nation’s leaders are still rehashing used futures.” There is also complacency and a feeling of lack of agency. As a security guard commented: “What can we do about the Coronavirus? One can die of a heart attack. Death is inevitable, and it could come at any time.[ix]
So, given the current crisis, what is next? While we certainly cannot say what will happen, we can outline probable futures.
THE SAVIOUR
In the first future, it is external – another nation attacking or saving- that is paramount. Once it was, the USA was saving Pakistan. Now it is China with its face masks and public health strategies.[x] A year from now, it will be China that helps Pakistan recover from financial collapse. The International Monetary Fund will come to the rescue later. Five years from now, it may be a different country. But Pakistan will remain the child, always waiting for the elder to save him/her.
https://nation.com.pk/29-Mar-2019/china-pakistan-vow-to-strengthen-ties
THE REVENGE
While forty years ago, the maulvis (clerics) occupied a minor space in Pakistani politics, today they are central to how reality is perceived. Their insistence on doing nothing, not allowing masjids to be closed, on using ignorance as a defense becomes the final straw. As one recently said: “Today, you all will shake each other’s hands before leaving the mosque. Perform namaz (prayers) standing shoulder-to-shoulder and ankle-to-ankle in the rows! If anyone amongst you contracts Coronavirus, shoot me in the middle of the street, and you will not be punished for that!”[xi] Said another: “It is all in the hands of Allah … we should fear God, not a pandemic.”[xii] Worse, the Pakistani state is unable to resist the power of the clerics. Indeed, “Even as the pandemic spread to the country, Pakistani authorities allowed tens of thousands of Islamic clerics from around the world to congregate for three days outside the eastern city of Lahore. Some 200 of the clerics are now quarantined at the site of the gathering, a sprawling compound belonging to an Islamic missionary group, Tableeghi Jamaat.”[xiii]
https://www.wrvo.org/post/pakistan-calls-limits-mosque-attendance-time-ramadan
Eventually, the religious right is forever banished to a peripheral role in politics. Progressive values once again take hold; it will no longer be fact versus faith, but a nation focused on science, technology, and inclusive economic development.
EVERYONE IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
https://keralakaumudi.com/en/news/news.php?id=164237&u=pakistan-staring-at-military-coup-army-chief-holds-talks-with-business-leaders-164237
Pakistan’s vision of the future is clouded, there is no unified identity. Me, myself and my tribe are most likely to dominate the agenda. Fragmentation will be the reality. Over the next six months, we can anticipate riots throughout the nation as poverty worsens and conflicts between the religious right and others increase. This will most likely lead to direct military rule, a return of to the civilian-military pendulum of governance.[xiv] The military will impose law and order. This will continue over the next few years. Looking back, Pakistan’s response was “too little, too late.” Power politics, poverty, and traditional ways of seeing the future were all complicit.
2. PURUESH CHAUDHARY – TECHNO PAKISTAN AND THE AWAKENING
In this future, the young make a massive push towards the digitalization of the economy. The 4th Industrial Revolution creates real change. Entrepreneurs and small business owners increasingly rely on using technology to enhance productivity and consumer experience, setting a better balance between work and life. This group of energetic young Pakistanis enables meaningful economic opportunities. 5G technologies create more jobs. They are not only leading a movement on flattening the curve but also paving the way for a future-centric ecosystem. Baby boomers and Gen X see the shift and join the bandwagon. Notions around platform cooperativism gain momentum. Ministries and regulators start using a systems-based approach to integrate databases for anticipatory governance. Imagination and creativity become the core function for all future R&D investments.
https://bestpakistan.pk/artificial-intelligence-ai-seminar-in-karachi/
As technologies continue to transform, geopolitics becomes less of a defining factor, and public health and equity become foundational. Political parties work together as the national emergency is so grave, during, and after COVID-19. No-one can go it alone. Landlordism and the military become far less important. Instead of nationalism, South Asia and regionalism become defining. Instead of searching for enemies, Pakistan searches for partners, within and without. Women gain inequity, as do the poor.
https://www.aku.edu/academics/Pages/nursing.aspx
The people are depressed. PTSD cases increase. At present, the people don’t believe that the government can control the pandemic or that it is at all serious about doing so. This situation of doom and gloom exacerbates. Some of the reasons include the political and economic situation in the country. On the political level, the people feel helpless because they have tried several political parties and not a single one delivered. In this future, trust in party politics is lost.
On the economic side, severe depression has already started. We know from the global economic depression of the late 1990s as well as from the depressions of the post-war and interwar periods that it takes quite some time for the economy to pick back up again. This time the depression will be greater as it is global in scope. All production channels worldwide have come to a stop. It could take years before the depression is over, but by then, it will have left the local economy of the country devastated. The industrial and services sector will shut down. It will take years for systems to get going again. By then, hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector will have lost jobs. Unemployment, poverty, and crime rates will increase. Global production will also shut down, and therefore there won’t be enough resources to fulfill local needs. Violence against women will also dramatically increase.
The economic depression will not just to deepen because of the pandemic, but also because of the increasing control of information. The establishment of the Command and Control Authority and government’s control over information is already raising suspicions among the people of the increasing power of the state. Information control will be used in calculating ways. It will be used as a way to bring in donations, aid, debt rescheduling, waivers, and so forth.
In this future, the legitimacy of political leaders, the Army, and the economy disappears. However, the nation does not break apart as all are too tired to resort to any dramatic action. Doom decreases the capacity to act.
https://telanganatoday.com/total-number-of-covid-19-cases-in-pakistan-rises-to-799
Narratives have huge persuasive power and strongly influence how people and nations think and act. Flawed historical narratives seduce nations into thinking, creating value, and justifying a particular course of action. The course of Pakistani history, present (and eventually the plausible future) has consistently fixated around two narratives. The first narrative is that of war. We are a nation that has always been at some sort of war. Our neighbor across the border has been our favorite punching bag, but we have forever been at war with more than them: the war against the infidels (Jihad), the war against terrorism, war against inflation, against corruption (Ehtesaab) and war for change (Tabdeel). It comes as no surprise, then, that current efforts against the coronavirus have been anointed the “War against COVID 19”. In a recent interview, Dr. Peter Black discussed how the usage of the war metaphor discounts or limits the number of options that become available to address the challenge.[xv] Sadly, the biggest casualty of war is the human capital, which then becomes the fuel of the engines of war.
The second narrative is the term “opportunity,” and I cannot think of any time in recent memory when any Pakistani leader has not talked about the “opportune moment” to act as the nation is “at a crossroads.” This, in itself, is problematic as people who see opportunities eventually become “opportunistic.” Once that happens, there is scant regard for alternative ways of thinking, and they eventually become the monster that they set out to fight. At a time when the leading thinkers discuss a global reset button, the narratives instilled in our national psyche remain the biggest hurdle in the whole nation coming together and moving towards a unified vision, a preferred future.
COUNTER-NARRATIVES FOR A PREFERRED FUTURE
The foreseeable future will be driven by these two narratives of opportunity at once a narrative has taken hold; they can be very difficult to shake off, at least until an even more compelling counter-narrative is introduced. Instead of war metaphors, there are other narratives that are much more useful for us in thinking about our preferred future. We could talk about the “Coronavirus movement,” similar to the Pakistan movement, which united all and sundry towards a common goal and cause. The other change in the narrative could be putting “Pakistanis before Pakistan,” instead of the other way round. “Opportunity” needs to be replaced by the possibility to accommodate other world views, experimentation, and backup plans in case of failure. The goal would be to make a post-corona Pakistan more humanitarian, rather than a victim of opportunistic wish lists. There is already a narrative that says that Pakistan is considered one of the most generous societies in the world – what is called the Law of Generosity. “We Pakistanis believe that one good deed begets another, and perhaps our generosity will spread faster than the virus. Armed with the unwavering belief that humanity at large will benefit, we are trying our best to provide a cushion to those who need assistance – and hope to those who need hope.”[xvi]
ACTION PLANS FOR A PREFERRED FUTURE.
At the systemic level, there are a few things that need to be sorted out in the march towards a preferred future.
About the Authors
Dr. Sohail Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, at USIM, Professor at Tamkang University, Taiwan and Associate Professor, Melbourne Business School, the University of Melbourne. He can be reached at sinayatullah@gmail.com.
Puruesh Chaudhary is a futures researcher and strategic narrative professional. She is the Founding President of AGAHI.
Dr. Syed Sami Raza is an assistant professor in political science at the University of Peshawar. He is the editor of the Journal of Review of Human Rights.
Umar Sheraz is the blog editor of the Journal of Futures Studies and can be reached at umar_sheraz@yahoo.com. He works at the Centre for Policy Studies at COMSATS University Islamabad, Pakistan.
References
[i] See Realtime Pakistan and Worldwide COVID-19 situation! (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from http://covid.gov.pk/
[ii] Dengue fever – Pakistan. (2019, December 12). Retrieved April 4, 2020, from https://www.who.int/csr/don/19-november-2019-dengue-pakistan/en/
[iii] Van. (2020, April 29). Pakistan: Poverty. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.adb.org/countries/pakistan/poverty
[iv] Plague – Medical History of British India – National Library of Scotland. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2020, from digital.nls.uk website: https://digital.nls.uk/indiapapers/plague.html
[v] Epidemiological Studies of Plague in India. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555600/pdf/bullwho00328-0149.pdf
[vi] Ira Klein, “Plague, Policy and Popular Unrest in British India,” Modern Asian Studies. Vol. 22, No. 4, 723-755.
[vii] Chaudhary, P. (n.d.). Pakistan 2029 – Policy Exercise. Pakistan State of Future Index. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/41497049/Pakistan_2029_-_Policy_Exercise
[viii] Pueyo, T. (2020, March 23). Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from Medium website: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
[ix] Welle, D. (n.d.). Coronavirus: Is Pakistan taking COVID-19 too lightly? | DW | 18.03.2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from DW.COM website: https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-is-pakistan-taking-covid-19-too-lightly/a-52824403.
[x] China sends medical aid to Pakistan to combat virus outbreak. (2020, March 28). Retrieved April 4, 2020, from CityNews Edmonton website: https://edmonton.citynews.ca/2020/03/28/china-sends-medical-aid-to-pakistan-to-combat-virus-outbreak/
[xi] Covid-19 is killing Pakistan’s economy. (2020, March 24). Retrieved April 29, 2020, from Economic Times Blog website: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/covid-19-is-killing-pakistans-economy/
[xii] Hadid, D. (n.d.). Pakistan Calls Off Limits On Mosque Attendance In Time For Ramadan. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from www.wrvo.org website: https://www.wrvo.org/post/pakistan-calls-limits-mosque-attendance-time-ramadan
[xiv] Sohail Inayatullah, “The Betrayal of Dreams,” review of Syed Abidi’s Social Change and the Politics of Religion in Pakistan in Pakistan Progressive (Summer 1990).
[xv] Chaudhary, P. (n.d.). Pakistan 2029 – Policy Exercise. Pakistan State of Future Index. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/41497049/Pakistan_2029_-_Policy_Exercise
[xvi] Imtiaz, A. (n.d.). The law of generosity combatting coronavirus in Pakistan. Retrieved April 13, 2020, from www.bbc.com website: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200331-the-law-of-generosity-combatting-coronavirus-in-pakistan?fbclid=IwAR3VNO08bIU5VjLfFGO-T0nNeWf75epNWguJIgj-BpDz11338TQjzcj-74o.
[xvii] 85,000 female doctors in Pakistan not working after getting education.’ (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from www.thenews.com.pk website: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/469205-85-000-female-doctors-in-pakistan-not-working-after-getting-education.
[xviii] Rakesh Kapoor, “Future as fantasy: forgetting the flaws.” Futures 33, (2) (2001): 161-170.
