Daniel Bell (1974) came up with the concept of
Post-Industrialism or Post Industrial Society. It refers to the shift from a
dominance of the manufacturing industry with its assembly line workers to the
growth of the service industry and its accompanying service oriented employees.
It comes with increased automation replacing blue-collar workers with machines
and enhanced focus on service, lean structures and professional workers.
What does this have to do with anything?
I don’t know but it brings to mind a phenomenon that is
taking place right here at home. The information above this paragraph came from
Wikipedia, below it is just me theorizing on what is taking place with the
market in Bahrain today and relating it to Bell’s theory. It has no merit
academically, economically, politically, comically or otherwise. However, with
all pieces of useless research must come the researcher’s own contribution and
I will gift you mine; no citation required.
In its early days, Bahrain started out as a pearl trade
country moving later on to manufacturing from aluminum extrusion to refining
GCC oil. Jobs in large manufacturers like Alba or Bapco were highly lucrative
and extremely competitive and the service industry was yet to be born. Then
came the banking “revolution” creating our own little post industrial culture
especially after opening the competition in the telecom industry and I observed
that service suddenly became a priority on everyone’s agenda.
Now here comes my little contribution to this particular
body of research…
The financial crisis and later on the political one have
created an employment void. People lost jobs in the service industry and
business have shrunk tremendously causing a shortage of positions available for
the increasing number of college graduates. However, the amazing outcome of
these mishaps is a new wave of employees: the self-employed. Home grown
businesses have emerged with the social media spike and we have seen many of them
flourish before our eyes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and then move out
of the virtual world and into the trade fairs and markets and permanent
offices, shops and kitchens.
So Bahrain moves from the industrial revolution, to the
service industry to the entrepreneurial industry; what I would like to call
“post-post-industrialism”.
Please let us not focus on the ridiculousness of the term
I’m about to coin and let’s pay attention to its meaning.
We, Bahrainis, do not succumb to market conditions or go
around begging for jobs. We CREATE jobs for ourselves and we do it well! We
have talents and business sense and we put them together to create innovative
products and services that compete with those in medium and large companies. We
do what we love and that is our job. The typical Bahraini is independent and
resourceful. We don’t wait for handouts or help. We earn our respect and place
in society and business and we make a name that sells itself. We don’t shy away
from laborious tasks and we don’t look down upon those who perform them if we
happen to be more fortunate. We are down to earth and amiable and we get our
hands dirty and we are PROUD OF IT.
This article is a tribute to all of those Bahraini entrepreneurs
who made it and those who are about to make it and even to those who might have
failed because its only a matter of time until success comes-a-knockin’.
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