World on Fire - Brownstein, Michael [150]
But what is to be done about the underlying hatred, not just against Americans at the global level, but against market-dominant minorities everywhere in the world?
One long-term strategy—in my mind more likely to be effective and certainly more dignified than erecting barbed-wire fences—is for market-dominant minorities to make significant, visible contributions to the local economies in which they are thriving. Although such efforts to date have been relatively few and by no means always successful in promoting goodwill, some valuable models can be found.
In East Africa, powerful families of Indian descent—among them the Madhvanis, Aga Khans, Mehtas, and Chandarias—have made immense contributions to their local communities, often concentrating heavily on indigenous African welfare and development. Indians, for example, were principally responsible for creating the University of Nairobi, East Africa’s first nonracial institution of higher education. More recently, the Madhvanis, owners of the largest industrial, commercial, and agricultural complex in East Africa, not only provide educational, health, housing, and recreational facilities for their African employees, but also employ Africans in top management and offer a number of wealth-sharing schemes. Similarly, Kenya’s powerful industrialist Manu Chandaria, who owns fourteen companies and employs five thousand workers in Kenya, has become a household name because of the millions he has poured into local education, health, and environmental conservation.
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In Russia, in a somewhat bizarre turn of events, Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich was recently elected governor of the godforsaken, poverty-stricken region of Chukotka, where temperatures commonly drop to minus thirty degrees Celsius. For better or worse, Abramovich bought his popularity by spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money airlifting food, parkas, boots, and medicine, buying computers and textbooks for the schools, and even flying three thousand children to sunny vacation destinations so they could swim in warm water.
38 A shrewd entrepreneur, Abramovich, who favors jeans and sneakers but models himself on American robber barons like Andrew Carnegie, wants to economically transform Chukotka and become “the first New Russian philanthropist.” So far, he is succeeding. “I love him,” said one local citizen, expressing a common sentiment. “Since he came in the new year, we have been receiving salaries on time. There have been no problems. All hope is on him.”
39 While many wonder about his motives, the fact remains that Abramovich, over a period of just a few years (and while two of his fellow oligarchs were being exiled), turned himself into a revered figure, seen by the local people as genuinely committed to helping their community.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Western multinationals have begun to view corporate philanthropy as part of a long-term profit-maximization strategy in developing countries. It is Coca-Cola’s official position, for example, that “In the nearly 200 countries where we do business, the Coca-Cola system gives back to the community.” (Perhaps nutrition and dental improvements could be areas for Coca-Cola to focus on.) In Mexico City, American multinationals played a crucial role in funding the building of El Papalote, one of the world’s outstanding children’s museums. Roughly five thousand poor and lower-middle-class children from all parts of the country visit the museum each day and, rightly or wrongly, associate the prominently displayed names of Hewlett-Packard and Procter & Gamble with the beneficial dispersion of science and education. Since its Pakistan soccer ball scandal, Nike has enacted a code of conduct and spent millions of dollars in philanthropy, specifically aimed at improving long-term opportunities for children and women in developing countries.
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Ideally, voluntary