Business leaders, politicians, intellectuals, and journalists gather in Davos, Switzerland every year to attend the World Economic Forum. They mingle, party, and—oh yeah—discuss poverty, war, and disease. On ForeignPolicy.com, scholar and author David Rothkopf offered regular dispatches from this year’s Davos gathering with anecdotes, political whispers, and celebrity sightings.
Several elements of this Davos Diary were picked up and run in other places, which is gratifying. However, in one instance, it is embarassing. In the item on the panel on Middle East nuclear proliferation chaired by Tom Friedman of the New York Times, it suggests that Friedman made a statement that suggested that none of the nations in the area should have nuclear weapons and that this was a source of embarassment re: Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, who was on the panel and whose nation does. Had the entry stated that it was Afghanistan's President Karzai who made the statement, it would have been accurate. That is what I intended to write and what my brain actually recalls having written. Being as how it was the truth and all. If it came out of my head otherwise or was somehow altered along the way, I apologize. Readers of the blog may recall I sustained several blows to the head along the way and anything is possible. Suffice it to say, Friedman ran the panel wonderfully with a light and informed touch and Karzai's misstatement was humorous and even he responded to his error with somewhat more grace than I have responded to this one.
Farewells and Foreplay 1/30/06
As the final night of Davos 2006 drew to a close on Saturday, India’s efforts to end its promotional blitz with a crescendo ran up against the irresistible energy of another of the year’s big stories. Following the traditional closing awards and a classical concert in the main ballroom, an Indian celebration was to be the culmination of the week’s events, underscoring with music, food, dancers, drummers and gifts for all the participants the “markets of tomorrow” message of the event. But the Indian preparations were so elaborate that for hours, while guests milled around waiting for the show in the main ballroom to start, that what was to be a secondary event in a neighboring building stole the spotlight. That event: a New Orleans-themed party which, ironically enough, was staged in a room that typically houses a swimming pool. No doubt the theme was intended as a tribute but it was certainly strange to listen to a great New Orleans jazz band, eat jambalaya, and watch the ultra rich and powerful dance in tuxedos and evening dresses while being festooned with all manner of Mardi Gras baubles even as the city in question remained an open wound back in the states.
Meanwhile, in the ballroom, the crowd waited, listening to Indian music, being draped with Indian shawls and presented with bracelets and bindis. And waited. And waited. They waited longer than I did and reportedly, after a couple hours, the room opened and the celebration began, highlighted by cooking from some of India’s greatest chefs flown in for the event. Even with the delays, the mood was festive, especially among those I talked to who regaled me with tales from the week’s most successful program element, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Relationships But Were Afraid to Ask.”
Why was it so popular? Had the world’s elite gone all soft? Was this part of the process of building a global community one couple at a time? Well, not exactly. You see, the session was popular because it was about sex. Not abstract sexuality. Not biology. Bedroom sex. It was sex tips for moguls and their wives. Quite explicit. Still, even in a discussion about such a basic subject, you could sense the strains of Davosian idealism permeating the conversation.
Take foreplay, for example. It was recommended to all present that the ideal approach to foreplay was at least one hour and fifteen minutes of touching without actually directly stimulating any “sensitive” body parts. An hour and fifteen minutes? Among this audience of time-strapped type A personalities? Right. What do you think is more likely: an hour and fifteen minutes of CEO foreplay or peace in the Middle East? Kind of makes you feel more optimistic about Hamas already. (Though one wife could be heard to say that her husband’s most sensitive area was his Blackberry and the only way she could get him to commit to an hour of anything would require that he be allowed to bring that with him to bed.)
In that respect, it was a good way to end this Davos. Whatever you might say about the meeting, this is an event that is relentlessly oriented toward fulfilling the World Economic Forum’s rather grandiose slogan of being “Committed to Improving the State of the World.” It brings together a group that includes many who are actually in a position to help advance that objective. Certainly, it addressed many of the issues most critical to that goal including: Iraq, Iran, the Palestinian Territories, development, poverty, health, technology, the environment, economics, trade, immigration, religion, ethics and “the creative imperative” (though I am still not quite sure what that means). And while the language of the Forum is often strangely stilted in a kind of modern day Esperanza—the civil society-ese of Euro-do-goodery—real dialogue takes place, meaningful messages are sent amid the rhetoric and the posturing and the event ends with a real sense of hope in the air. At least it did yesterday for many of the delegates, notably for the Indians and the Chinese who were the belles of the ball regardless of when it started, for the Iranians who got the message that they will probably be able to keep their nuclear program, for Hamas who got a first reaction from global elites that was very cautious but left open the possibility of dialogue, for Bill Clinton who—even if his wife does not become President in 2008—will always be the First Man of Davos, and, of course, for all those who left hopeful that greater prosperity, peace, and vastly extended foreplay are in their futures.
