Stumbled upon this little something  earlier today on my Buzz feed shared by Mr. Muscati, and it scratched a sore itch that I’ve had on this subject matter for a while.

The blog post revolves around two main themes, the first attributes the disinterest in the dine-out culture to a lack of variety in the restaurant scene, and the second finding reasons for why this is the case. It’s not at all perfect, there are certainly bones to pick, but I’d rather just posit my opinion, than negate theirs.

That said, the reasons provided in the blog are not a bad place to start this discussion. Speaking to friends and non-friends, many echo the post’s sentiment behind this disinterested. Chiefly attributed to a a lack of a culinary culture and a discouragement by pertinent prohibitives in the industry, amongst other things.

I content that these are mirco readings into a macro problem. The problem with dine-out experience is not necessarily that of the dining out experience itself, but given that a lot of these difficulties are the same that appear in other struggling business areas, the existence of some underlying problems, the resolving of which is not a readily applicable solution to the restaurant industry’s problems per se, but should condition the start-up environment into avoiding these problems, by influence now, and by force in the future. However, I think I will maintain the restaurant metaphor and you draw your own conclusions.

The first problem I think is with the audience. Mr & Mrs R call this a lack of a ‘culinary culture’. If Mr & Mrs R suggest a connotation which implies that a culinary culture caters to some snobbish cheese-n-wine type set-course dining experience, then this is a premise that I do not share with them. A culinary culture needs not be more than fancy way of saying a collective of eaters, and eaters who love to eat, and this is not something that we have a problem with as an audience.

The audience’s problem is not getting them interested in fine food, because we shouldn’t. It’s also not getting them interested in food, because they already are. The problem in essence lies with adventure and laziness. The audience is not taking enough risks or experimenting enough with different places. It’s easier to comply with the social norm of going to the well-established, and well-named than the unusual and undiscovered. It’s an uphill battle if B+F is your competition, and it’s particularly discentivizing if you are a restaurant owner and you know that what you have to offer is better than the competition.

And it’s not only a laziness in choice, but also actual physical laziness. Getting a person who lives in the Bowshar area to go go out for a meal in Al-Seeb is practically impossible. This is significant because when this happens you lose that value where excessive driving eventually leads to an impromptu meal, which of at least one time out of five are usually places that you’ll like and want to come back to again. People going to places, rather than just going is bad for foodies.

Of course, as always, I also think there’s a bit of an issue with attitude. This only applies to a very tiny slice of the population who are excessively vigilant over their nutritional intake. The Health Nazis. The labelling of places as healthy or unhealthy is in fact unhealthy for the industry. The problem here is that you have these diet nuts labelling every other restaurant as healthy or unhealthy food, which on its own right is not a bad thing, but when this becomes the only criteria, an ‘unhealthy’ food restaurant is not a compelling argument against eating there if you, as the majority of everyone, are not a health nut. People should stop eating at KFC, McDonalds, B+F and the shawarma places not because they’re unhealthy, but rather because they serve, simple, bad food.

While the focus here, was on the food industry, the lesson here can be carried to other things. The adventure value is transferable to any reality. You can never set a trend, if you’re going to always be following one.

The second problem concerns the lack of an innovation culture. I think a definition of an enthusiast in any field is in essence a notice of that enthusiast’s excessive consumption. An innovator, I think, is one who feels pleased by this consumption that it inspires him not only to be a consumer, but also a creator, and sadly  this has not been exercised enough for people to be aware that there’s a precedent for it and be encouraged to take the risks associated.

I think a large part of this has to do with age. The people you’re looking for are 20-somethings who start off their pitches with “you know what would be cool ?”. Someone with sufficient knowledge of subject matter field, but reckless enough to go ahead with it. People with enough passion in what they like, that they would not quit when it starts looking like the end of the world. I think the above 30s still retain some creative vision, but have neither the energy nor the inclination to pursue creative endeavours and have mostly settled with application-of-prior-knowledge-or-experience type projects. The above 40s have provided no entrepreneurial solutions beyond chain restaurant, which the restaurants on their own will testify to prove.

There’s some evidence to this happening now, with a good surge to local home business in the past of years, there are the makings of skillful capable individuals who can see themselves, and are likely in the near future, to move out of the home and into the office. I should not misportray the reality by saying that there’s been a surge, but the number of known and discoverable home business in the last few years have grown from about 5 to 40.

Thirdly, the need to democratize the market. Call me a cynic here, but I’m doubtful that a burger actually costs 4 Rials to make and profit from. I’m no expert, but I find fault at restaurants empty upon entry (for no reason other than disregard to market price) and still charge four or five rials for a burger.

I know that good food costs money, I’m simply positing that this needs not be the case. I would happily pay whatever a fine dine out costs these days, but a decent burger / steakhouse / bistro type advent should seek to profit on scale rather than point of sale. This is the only way I observed for a food business to remain relevant after the initial hype has settled (Hawasna ?).

Fourth, think things through. I am aware that it seems like I’m wasting your time (if you noticed this only now, shame on you) but I think a lot of the restaurants that opened and closed before, are open now, and will (DEFINITELY) close in the future, or ones that haven’t opened yet, but will do so eventually  share the same problem of not having thought things through.

The majority of restaurants are faulted in some aspect or other for the obvious reason of things not thought of thoroughly. Location, timing, restaurant/cafe confusion, floor management, seating (oh I can’t complain about this one enough), crowd, and so on. It’s good to have a vision of what needs to be done, but its not healthy not to have an alternative vision for if customer’s don’t respond to the restaurant's vision, or reconcile with what the customers want, if you’re driving a certain crowd.

Yeah. That’s it, I think.

I’ll proof read this some time later I promise.

I was reading this article by Ms. Esra’a Al-Shafei last night and have a few things to say about it.

It is enterprised in the article, that our Middle Eastern youth agenda needs to be, could, or already is reformed from ‘stereotypical and fundamentalist angles’ and now we, truly, fitnally, and surely, possess the tools to achieve the “unity” that we’ve been practicing for so long to finally collectively liberate ourselves from this uncomfortable corner that our “historical barriers” have put us in (read: Everyone else who is not us).

Or as I’m sure most of your read it, “We have broadband internet, and twitter accounts and now we can perhaps attempt to, together, in [soundbite] unity [/soundbite] change the ancestral and deeply entrenched opinions that people in charge of things favor with ones that we prefer, that will also have their own Facebook fan pages.

Folks, this is not about my doubtfulness about the effectiveness of social media as a driver of change in the developing world. Read my last blog for that. But does it seem to you, the way it does to me, that what I just took out of context sounds like a total load of bulls balls ? Maybe it's not the article, every CNN article as of late requires there being some sort mini pep-talk of miraculous change of something that’s someone else fault. Regardless, this part doesn't bothers me much with this article (maybe with the CNN), but my gripe with Ms. Shafei’s article or with Ms. Shafei, is that she is either unawaringly promoting fallacies or intentionally make misrepresentations, making assumptions of of them and then capitalizing off of them.

For example, a recurring theme that appears in this article is the area of civil rights. Ms Shafei cites the discrimination of Baha’is and other religious minorities in a manner that makes it appear as though these are active and deliberate intolerances pertinent to the Islamoarab world in its entirety, fuelled by religious, secular, or tribal hatred, arranged by its leaders, and supported by their regimes

The imagery ascends the matter from being the purely domestic political issues that they are, relevant only within the localities in which they exist, and makes it seem like the Islamoarab world is some Aladdinesque conjoined mass of land, presided by an elite of prankster rulers, picking out on small minorities, and then enabling a Murdochsian-flavoured witch-hunt in the state-operated media channels to “manipulate” the public into getting in on the prank. This is not the case and Ms. Shafei makes no effort to rectify the attitude that this draws.

I am not proclaiming that we need not speak of these issues or offer aid where it is possible and reasonable to do so, but these matters need first be realized as domestic political issues that need be circumvented by way of internal factional discourse, not by intervention. Failing to anticipate, or, wholly & irresponsibly, disregarding the realistic consequences of the political discourse that can be reasonably foreseen to transpire from an attitude like this (Syria/Lebanon).

Also failing to attribute this not being an inherent interest of ‘the’ collective of Middle East youth, but rather matters in which ‘a’ collective of Middle East youth individuals may respond to with approval, disapproval and activism. The organization of efforts of those who favor the latter need be evident of being autonomous to Middle East youth.

This sort of rounding up denotes an entitlement to the title of the collective and an inclusion of everyone in it without that really being the case. David Cameron would not be pleased if he wakes up tomorrow if the British Nationalist Party has announced that it’s changed its name to The British Government, and I’m sore in my soft sports the same way Mr Cameron is (in his, not mine). “Muslims for civil rights” makes it seem like any Muslims who are not part of this agenda are Muslims against civil rights.

This would not bother me as much if the Middle East Youth, the project, wasn’t actually capitalizing on this to promote their agenda that is radically liberal prejudiced, unapologetically apologetic to Arab history or tradition and critical of any sense of political leaning that aims for fair conflict resolution, rather than non-conflict.

It would not bother me, further yet, if the agenda was not even actually that of a tiny minority in the Arab world, where the majority of Arabs (representatively, their youth too) subscribe to political apathy with disinterest in local or regional political issues beyond the seasonal cri de cour of cloaked defeat for when Israel pulls a flotilla.

A similar hijacking appears with Islam. None of the arguments that they tackle are failure to assume and follow Islamic teachings. None of the work MEY is involved with is particularly Islamic (Islamist?) inspired yet everything, here, there and in between is slapped with a Muslim moniker. Even the title of the article.

I remember reading about a story some years back on their website about homosexuality in Iran, denouncing government imposed sanctions explicitly sourced from Islamic doctrine upon homosexuals in Iran, yet they defended it and claim they are Muslims for unity and tolerance rather than just regular folk for unity and tolerance. I disagree with a lot of things in Islamic culture, or even doctrine, this being one of them, but to critique and make justifications and rationalizations for things that are of (sour) Islamic flavor and then drag the Muslim label into it for no apparent reason cannot be accepted, and should not be merited. The distinction between ‘a group of Muslims’ and ‘a Muslim group’ is needs not be disrespected in this manner.

Ms. Shafei speaks of “a diversity of opinion, fervor, ideals, hopes and politics” but enables none but her own. Speaks of “a damning lack of freedom of expression and information” yet mild critiques on the website’s commentary section made no instant fans, and were soon after deleted. By accident, I have no doubt. Either way, I’m certain Ms. Shafei and her companions all have bigger hearts than I do and will accept any of my “alternative narratives” better-fashioned next time around.

The rest of the article is more of the, MEY editorial type shenanigans, same. Freedom of speech, rights of those guys, these guys are being abused, this guy just got jailed, This guy’s gay. All merry talk in my book, nothing that I have a problem with, but I think, all said and done, a waste of forum that this space for an article could have been, because let’s face it no one really cares about this kind of thing, and the writing had no ‘I have a dream’ stylistic mojo that makes you want to care.

 Other parts of the article made little sense to me. Ms Shafei lectures about the necessity to “take our humanity and our futures in our own hands, and (we) use the internet and other forms of technology to fight for the right to do so”. The overall character of the opening of the article is that our ability to achieve ‘political comfort’ in the future is contingent upon us not falling into a trap set for us by the earlier generation into thinking that we won’t be in control of our ‘humanity and futures’ when we are ‘in control’, and we’ll have to fight for our right to do this? I don’t get one bit of this. It’s probably just me because I don’t like SciFi and all this cross-generational mind control stuff. Yeah, that’s probably it.

“Censored by various leaders to manipulate public sentiment by illustrating the "otherness" of our neighbors and our "enemies."” Surely, our neighbors are not us, therefore by definition others. Why is it implied that this not the case? And what of our “enemies” ?

I’m just wasting your time now, really. Off to watch Boston Legal.

Denny Crane.

P.S. This post :-

a) was not proof-read
b) may not make sense to most of you
c) may not appeal to your religious, moral or political prejudices.
d) May contain nuts and, or, dairy products.
e) Should not have been allowed, by you, to go for this long.

Reading this article here reminds me of the brilliant scene by Jack Nicholson & Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men. Very much like Cruise in the movie, I see a man. Young, principled, optimistic and eloquent. In one hand, a ticket of superficial credibility, that a college degree has become these days, and in the other, an agenda for change.

Change that suggests a departure from the set of mechanisms that our government employed and society tolerated to prejudice stagnancy of freedom of expression in our rapidly changing world. While a nice ideal, I think the fourth branch's fruits are yet to ripen into a forceful, credible and inevitable driver for change.

I believe some are readily calling me out as a pessimist. A dissenter to the notion that freedom of expression is the last hurdle to our development into a sophisticated multilateral country. My response to this is that I bear no grudge against this idea, but I am conservative in accepting this thesis as a basis for change. I have no interest in charging my arguments with optimism and pessimism, but rather examine things with realism.

The glass is not half-full or half-empty. It's cracked and leaking.

The reality, I think most people would like not to agree, of expression being a force for inevitable change is that it's overly optimistic. I agree that a shift in mentality is necessary, but I'm convinced that supporters of the freedom of expression camp have little understanding of how expression, exclusively, can not function as a force of change.

Supporters of the idea are naive into having bought into the necessity for expression in the American/European template of utopianism to success, not having consideration to whether this caters to our needs and our ideals.

Despite the American/European model where this comes from, and where it was successful, I firmly stand that freedom of expression is not inherent or instinctual to social, governmental and economical prosperity, but rather a conscious choice made result of conviction of its absolute necessity to cater to the needs and ideals of the political systems they have constructed.

The freedom of expression's movement dictating that being able to voice concern, criticism and outcry about corruption, scandal, or approaches to government policy will in fact embarrass and pressure government into providing change has little merit simply because it provides a soap box but no mechanism of enforcement. It provides only to be heard, and no insurance of being listened to.

Any world political system demonstrates absolutely that where there is no enforcement, there is no effect to freedom of speech. The Americans, outraged over George Bush Jr policies for years, had no means of influencing change. Israel, for years criticized, continue their expansion strategies. Global warming policies, preached endlessly, have failed to be adopted with commitment.

This movement's (I call them the opposition party) argument that freedom of expression, exclusively or primarily, is a catalyst for immediate prosperity is testament of questionable understanding of the political system. There's an Iraqi proverb that loosely translates to 'We used to die to say something, now we die from what we say', and there's a lesson about impact of expression failing to achieve it's goal there for everyone.

I argue so vehemently against this because this movement represents the sole political collective discussing 'the future of Oman'. With freedom of expression as a palette, painting it as rosy to the politically misinformed, (rightfully) aggravated and jejune average Salim. Their growing momentum leads me to be convinced of their inevitable possession of a proactive role in future government.

Considering what I think is an unavoidable expansion of politicalism in governing, their ideals being so so flawed and disorganized to me is enough not to support ideals that won't work, that are not catered to our priorities, and that may have implications above our anticipations. To me, this draws an analogy of an old man, slowly pacing towards the proverbial wall of change to the worst, handing the torch to the reckless young man who will dash towards it and crash.

So what am I saying ? I'm saying our generation is not ready for freedom of expression. The examples being used to show what it could do for us portray an eloquent, liberal and loquacious group of individuals with enough adjectives to make even Sweden look like a dystopia. This is the same language that it's intend and promised to criticize policies on government officials, who they plead to be granted freedom of expression from. (Score one for yourself, if you noticed the irony as soon as I did).

If I did think that freedom of expression is necessary, which I do, I'm not faulted to see where the success of it's adoption could be faltering now.
 

So what do I think we should do ? Two things.

The first being to express freely.

The core and the arguable necessity from freedom of expression is that we will use it ultimately to bring favorable change. Solutions. While there is this influential movement of dissent of governmental policy, there isn't a matching one for providing solutions to these problems.

The arguments we hear about governmental failure connotes a corelation between the failure and the antiquity and irrelevance of 'thinking' that these policies are a result of. There is great failure to respond with policies in fashion describing alternative approaches that are modernly relevant, tech savvy and actively positioned to replace 'bad law'.

Principles and ideals are wonderful, but compromises are plausible. When there isn't much inclination to respond to feedback, effort should not be spared towards pointing out failure, but towards compromising for rectification, the ultimate and more rewarding solution.

Maybe this is not the approach that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X took to bring black people where they are today, but certainly the result was a compromise that paved towards the ideal. While it's more appealing to be tearing down the wall, standing in front of the tank, and throwing things at the telescreens, striving towards the ideal may only alienate the possibility of genuine interest in feedback further.

The second is that we should stop being hypocritical bastards.

Let's face it we are. We have not witnessed, but can only hear of how due to our government, after the renaissance, development exploded unprecedentedly and impressively with drive that we can only envy. Drive, and undeterrence, that is deservedly rewardable. They have fought, sacrificed and won their battle, and pursued their dream to excel, and they have reaped the rewards accordingly. Maybe the momentum died sometime in the 90s, but that's applaudable nonetheless.

We made no such effort. Fought no battles, and made no sacrifices. The value of sacrifice and the principle of wanting to be part of country that pursues excellence in our generation has been understated. We instead, would rather work in the private sector, where the pay is better, the benefits are meatier, and the interest is (not saying this critically) self-serving.

I would agree that it would be stupid not to do this if we were a developed nation, but we are not. We are a developing one, and the trend (still yet so) is that government, not the free market private sector, is the driver for 'pace' development.

and so I find this notion of not making sacrifices where they're necessary (despite any effort spared elsewhere) and yet expecting some sort of entitlement to rights and rewards (like freedom of expression) to be loathingly hypocritical. We don't deserve it.

While the legals and sociologists would want to argue that we have a constitution of fundamental rights which provides these things for us, I feel obliged to refuse it. I'm open to argue that it was more a fruit of the effort, than it was the manual for which that effort was conducted in.

The other argument on this is that, there exist developing countries where there is true entitlement to these rights. I contend that again this is weak understanding of the political ecosystem. Paying personal income taxes we could qualify for being able to purchase our entitlements, but I believe where there is no form of return to the government, the political system is unsustainable and unbalanced.

"We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to"

Man, that was such a good movie.

p.s. I have made little effort in proofing this. Your spelling, grammar comments are just that. Yours to keep.

This anecdote has been told by many people, but it's most symbolic version comes from Stephen Hawking's 1988 book 'The Brief History of Time' which starts

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Brilliant.