Elza S. Maalouf - Natural Design Principles for Madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Elza is an associate of Don Beck's - she heads up the Spiral Dynamics efforts in the Middle East. And there could not be a better person for the job. Here she outlines her plan for how to reshape madrasas in the world's Taliban hot spots of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is from her Integral Politics in the Middle East blog.

Key passage:

This is the basis of the value-based concept of Innovation in Memetic Technologies — IMT^® for short. I have been developing these value-based technologies throughout the years of my work in tribal and feudal cultures, from the early days of being a community organizer and attorney in the Middle East, and later framed by my work with Dr. Don E. Beck on his Large Scale Branch of Psychology.

Here is the beginning of the article:

Natural Design principles for Madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Elza S. Maalouf

On today's Fareed Zakaria's show, GPS, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that power alone will not achieve the US' goals in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. In the Secretary's speech to the National Defense University he stressed that "Our National Defense Strategy is BALANCE..." Included in this strategy is counter-insurgency operation manuals, Special Forces and Navy programs and "A variety of initiatives are underway that better integrate and coordinate U.S. military efforts with civilian agencies as well as engage the expertise of the private sector, including NGOs and academia."

I did not expect the Secretary of Defense in his speech at NDU to go into details on how to integrate military and civilian efforts. This lack of specificity has been a theme with Clinton, Gates and even Zoellick, president of the World Bank. They all talk about integrated efforts, smart power and societal issues as a complementary part to their strategies, a kind of a by-product that they stumbled upon when their initial strategies did not work. These societally-fit and culturally-fit strategies should be an integral part of their defense, diplomacy and development strategies. In light of the failures we face — economic, political and military — the central theme of our Foreign policy has to change to include at its center a comprehensive understanding of the underlying codes of the cultures we operate in.

This is the basis of the value-based concept of Innovation in Memetic Technologies — IMT^® for short. I have been developing these value-based technologies throughout the years of my work in tribal and feudal cultures, from the early days of being a community organizer and attorney in the Middle East, and later framed by my work with Dr. Don E. Beck on his Large Scale Branch of Psychology.

One of the most effective tools we use in IMT^® is based on the framework of Natural Design Principles (Graves-Beck) which in its simplest form asks the following questions in descending priority:

1. WHERE (Geo-Social Landscape) are these people we want to lead/teach/reform?


2. WHAT is the overarching goal of this project or intervention?


3. WHO are they? What are their capacities? Their Value-systems? their belief-systems? their history? religion? tribal loyalties etc....


4. After assessing these essential element of our systemic strategies for change, we now decide on HOW to do this change? and Change from WHAT to WHAT?

Go read the rest of the post to see how she applies these principles to reforming madrasas,

Tags: Elza S. Maalouf, Natural Design Principles for Madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Spiral Dynamics, Religion, culture, education, Integral Politics in the Middle East, Don Beck, Large Scale Psychology, Innovation in Memetic Technologies