Learning from Nairobi: The Rise of the Rest

In Austria, the neighbour’s husband is nearing retirement. He has become highly sensitive to noise and deeply anxious about the future. Young students worry about war and the warming of our planet. As winter approaches, more people seem increasingly unmotivated, struggling with a lack of initiative.

In contrast, here in Nairobi, hotel waiters and chambermaids spend three hours every day commuting in matatus. Despite their hardships, they laugh, remain cheerful, and feel grateful to have jobs that provide salaries that enable them to afford something special once a month. Whether rich or poor, almost everyone embraces an entrepreneurial spirit, often maintaining a side hustle alongside their primary work.

Different mindset in Nairobi

This starkly illustrates the different mindsets between:

✳️ the world where basic needs have long been met, and consumerism is reaching its limits, and
✳️ the world of developing and emerging countries, entrepreneurial people all over, where a significant portion of the population still lives in absolute poverty.

Austria and Kenya embody these two worlds.
👉 Austria represents the industrialized nations—a group of 1.5 billion people that pioneered the market economy, democracy, and globalization.
👉 Nairobi/Kenya represents the emerging world, the so-called “Global South”. A world which is increasingly led by China and the BRICS nations, home to more than six billion people.

❗ “The rise of the rest”❗

as Fareed Zakaria termed it in his 2008 book, ‚The Post-American World’, has become a reality. ❗

By 2024, following the rise of China, the pandemic, and Russia’s war of aggression, those of us in German-speaking Europe are beginning to realise what that means 😐 .

This post was first shared on Linkedin: The Rise of the Rest