Mazen Nahawi on conflict, communications and courage in the Middle East

Welcome to the earned first podcast. This is Arun Sudaman. I'm the founding editor of earned first. I'm really happy today We've got someone on the podcast that I have been trying to secure for quite a while Mr. Mazen Naha'uhi who's the founder and group CEO of Karma and of Rain sitting today in Dubai I imagine Mazen welcome to the podcast Thank you everyone. Great to be with you Yeah, it's our pleasure. First of all, how are you doing? Of course, it's It's a very strange period, I suspect In the UAE and in the Gulf these days. So how are you managing amidst all of this madness? With a lot of patience and optimism and as you can see from my gray hair a lot of Experience that the region has been through this kind of thing before And I'm very confident and the end of it will have a very good rebound economically and The long-term prospects of the region will not be diminished. Yeah, I'm I Think many people would no doubt agree with your assessment there Now we'll we will talk about a few things on this podcast not least your journey with Karma and with rain you you oversee two Holding groups had caught it out of the Middle East which is no small feat in today's communication sector But let's start by talking a little bit about this current conflict We have we have partnered on a couple of webinars so far a couple of media briefings Around the US around war which have been very interesting from my perspective tapping into Karma's intelligence and insights around media sentiment and Around some of the information and comms trends some of which I think are quite novel We have not seen before particularly from a kind of wartime Perspective what has perhaps surprised you most in terms of what you've seen from a media perspective? I think the most surprising things that people aren't really taking a side in favor or against the warring parties The majority of people are quite neutral and being on the fence is an unusual development I would have thought there would have been more people in favor of the Gulf countries for example But the level of positivity towards the Gulf countries isn't as high as I thought it would be Certainly they're quite negative towards the competence Iran Israel and the United States But it's a big lesson for the region that while the region made headlines from an economic Social sport and entertainment point of view now that it's crunch time I don't want to say that the region has been abandoned But the lack of support for the region among the global public has been eye-opening Do you think this is actually reflective of real sentiment? Do you get a different picture perhaps from social media Or from you know maybe less traditional sources of authority? Great question you find positivity towards the region greater among traditional journalists your BBC CNN and the like You can argue whether they're a little bit biased here or there, but on the whole mainstream reporting towards the region has been quite good There's been a narrative of the Gulf countries being victims of an unprovoked assault by Iran Which obviously is true There's a deep look into the economic Consequences of the war the social consequences, but also pretty even handed Review of what the long-term prospects for the economy and our society will be I think on social media it's been much varied, you know, obviously you have a larger global audience and you're going to have people who are either far away You could be in China you could be in Latin America May have heard of the war, but is it really important to you and the answer is probably not for the majority of the world's population It's a wake-up call from a comms perspective that the region Despite having become popular in London and Paris and New York and maybe a couple of major Asian cities Hasn't really finished the job when it comes to telling the story of the region and that's why so many people are neutral I think our numbers showed roughly 70% of people having a neutral view of the Gulf countries during the conflict um So I think while it's more positive on mainstream it's more neutral among global public on social media And that's an indicator of what regional public affairs people need to focus on What does finishing that story look like because we Have seen for example that The Gulf nations particularly the UAE I think have been able to tell a very effective story And a very honest I believe depiction of you know stable economic environments where Everyone is welcome people can live safe lives And in many cases they can be more economically empowered than they could be in their home countries Right What do you think's missing perhaps from that narrative and what do you Think is required to as you say finish that job I think there are two things which need to happen in the short term The country just needs to get out of the conflict and I make sure that anything that can be done Uh, using any means possible to have Iran back off needs to happen Um, the quicker the conflict is decisively over the better As ceasefire won't be good enough for countries like the UAE There has to be a permanent end That will guarantee no return to conflict in the future Otherwise any discussion around safety will always have an as-fresk and people will doubt it There's going to have to be some form of visual peace agreement Whatever it may be a UN resolution Showing a decisive end to an open-ended conflict and providing the world with a legal and political reassurance That the war is over And that should be signed on by everybody in the region Not only in the Gulf but obviously Iran and Israel It's unlikely that Israel and Iran will actually Be on the same table and reach such an agreement But that's not as important as the UAE in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Bahrain and Kuwait Reaching a permanent end to a war with Iran or conflict with Iran Um, and I think there's a good possibility of that happening That's a short The story needs to evolve just saying to buy Abu Dhabi, Doha, Musqat Our great places to come to live and work and to visit Will not be enough. We're going to have to be more creative We're going to have to be much more impactful We're going to have to reach people in a different way So while people might still be attracted to a great concert or an F1 race or a tax-free income That's not going to be enough People are going to need to feel not only a different sense of security, but they're going to need to have The confidence that they can have longer term groups in this region But for bed should there be some kind of a challenge not necessarily a military or security one But even something like COVID and people were to get laid off from their jobs They need to have the security that they can remain in their home Have their children in their school up until they recalibrate and find a different job for example The UAE has been pioneered by creating the Golden Visa scheme Ten-year residency, unemployment insurance So they're leading the way in that direction I think a lot more will need to be done To give people a sense of permanence and security and having deep roots over here I wouldn't be surprised if a new program is launched in the near term To push in that direction Um, I would not be surprised if the UAE would once again pioneer leading the expansion of policy That keeps people here. It's been working Many people here are still committed to living and working in the UAE And a similar story in other parts of the Gulf But I think a new push is required Hmm We were on stage not that long ago Beginning of February So three months ago almost exactly at Praxis MENA in Abu Dhabi And we talked about the UAE's brand Right And you said you pointed out that yes for the most part it's positive Of course that will have there will be some impact Since then from the ongoing war But you also raised an interesting observation I thought which is that There are aspects of the UAE brand which you felt were not being paid enough attention to There was some certain you know this coverage around the UAE ways, activities, perhaps in Africa. And you felt that not enough focus is being placed on how to perhaps counter some of these narratives. Do you still think that's the case? I do. I think a lot of the good work that the UAE does hasn't been covered properly in different parts of the world. The country doesn't feel the need to be bombastic about it. They're quite happy for it to be charitable and low-key. But I think that's going to have to change, especially when there's a lot of unjustified criticism from certain parties. For example, people are attacking the UAE for not standing with the Palestinians, for example, which is not true. They provide more aid to the Palestinians than anybody. But in the public mind, that narrative is being challenged. And the UAE needs to more to show what it's done. And showing a hospital being repaired or ambience is being delivered to Gaza, et cetera, are OK, but they're not enough. It needs to show this is a coherent and long-term policy, going back decades and will continue into the future. And telling the story of people having their lives lifted, thanks to that aid from an educational health care, business perspective, is something that needs to be looked at. Whenever we talk about the UAE, it's being a good place to live and work. We often think of the macroeconomic policy, but telling the story of people and how they're benefiting, telling Mazen's story-- imagine you were living here, telling a rune story on-- you had a better job, better income, better home, better schools, better health care, no huge weighting at an NHS clinic. All of the things which make life better, I think need to be told much more from an individual and family perspective, and increasingly a community perspective, as opposed to just think like the policy is great. You don't pay taxes. Yeah. I guess that requires a certain amount of loosening, maybe, a certain comfort, where not being able to control the narrative as rigorously. And this is a consistent challenge with many organizations. I suppose the question is, do you think institutions in the region are ready for that discussion? Great question. Great question. I do. I think growing up here, I wrote for a newspaper in 1996. And there was no opportunity to say something something's not heading in the right direction. Today you find constructive criticism on everything you can imagine. If road works aren't great, or the storage systems aren't working properly. If there is rainfall and flooding, people are talking, they are criticizing. But the system of criticism remains very much part of the eastern ethic of speaking politely and respectfully, as opposed to using it as a political scoring point, or being snide and thinking of everything as an adversarial exercise. So a lot has changed. I think success leads to confidence. And when you're confident, you're willing to hear people out. And you're willing to be criticized in a constructive manner. I think in many eastern societies, in the old days, failure was looked at as being a shameful or a bad thing. I don't think that was part of our longer term history from West Asia to East Asia. But I think under colonial rule, failure became a really bad thing. Either you get cained or hit or imprisoned or executed if you failed. So I think a lot of our parents and grandparents in this part of the world were really averse to the idea of failure. But because we are a confident bunch and in the Arab world and the Gulf in particular, you have a different level of success and growth and unity and progress. Confidence is rising. And when you're confident, you realize it's OK to fail. And I think that's bleeding to greater flexibility on dialogue, on politics, on journalism. And I think that will continue, but within the broader limit of keep it polite, keep it respectful, and keep it legal. We don't want to recreate the European Union. We don't want to recreate the UK parliamentary system or God forbid the Trump regime. We like what we have. We wanted to remain but to evolve for the better. Yeah, very, very insightful historical context out. I think sometimes it's that kind of context is often forgotten when discussing why societies in different parts of the world behave as they do. The reasons for this kind of behavior, they didn't just emerge suddenly one day. We really have to look at everything. You also said the UAE has a TikTok problem. That line has remained with me. Do you still-- I wonder if you could perhaps just discuss that a little bit more. And tell me whether you still think that's the case. I do. I think the opponents of the UAE and even the opponents of other Gulf countries and Arab countries in general are having a field day punching through the narrative of the region and coming up with all kinds of wrong stories and misinformation. Now, are people dumb? No. Most people will see through a lot of it. But it's taken on a different quality over the past few years time. And because TikTok is difficult to track and to monitor and to evaluate, they don't have an earned media API, for example. So all of the dashboards out there aren't monitoring TikTok because they can't get the feed. You have to figure out different ways of doing that. And that's what we do as a company, along with Pinterest and LinkedIn and Snapchat stories, et cetera. And there are just too many people who whose narrative isn't being pushed back against or having a narrative which counters it in a positive manner. I think too many communicators here are probably a little bit older. I'm talking about being in their 30s. A different age group to mine. And they are Instagram addicts. And they like being there. It's predictable. It's easier to manage. You have more safety controls. We're waiting for the next generation of cons leaders who are TikTok savvy to take over and to make TikTok part of their dialogue, especially from a public affairs point of view. So I think that will change as a young Emirati, Saudi, Plotari, and other regional cons leaders emerge and say, you know what? I was 25. Now I'm 35. And I'm the guy in charge of a department or deputy head. We have to get into TikTok. And we have to get into LLM management. And we need to make sure that the management of our reputation isn't glued to just one platform in some legacy traditional media. We have to reach the right people. And we're appropriate. We have to counter wrong stories, especially when they're woven together through a toxic combination of opponents of the region supported by an ever-growing army of bots and fantastical stories. One more question on the current geopolitical situation. One of them, perhaps more interesting media trends, at least, has been the usage of memes, almost as an instrument of this conflict. Of course, the most notable of these is probably the Lego videos that have been deployed by the Iranian government. What do you make of this development? And do you see that influencing the development or the broader communications environment in the region? I do. I think even though I'm not a fan of the Iranian government by any means, their communication strategy has been very powerful. We just have to say it the way it is. The Lego videos are an example of an integrated mix of comms done right. The memes and the Lego videos are resonating with the young people who are going to grow up and entire generation is going to grow up thinking, maybe Iran is a victim. Imagine that because they watch the Lego video. I used to watch from across the water how Iran was meddling in the affairs of every Arab country and causing chaos everywhere. Young people might not get that impression. But in addition to that, they're reaching other audiences. They've got these very articulate university professors, like Dr. Ahmadian who started a period on Al Jazeera about two months ago and has become an instant celebrity. I thought he was superb as an Arab classicist in his communications, but he's a very good English speaker too. And he's become a very popular figure. And his narrative is catching on with a lot of Arab people, which is extremely alarming. He has an articulation. priceless manner, which is very much on point, and he's winning every tactical argument. But no one's being able to challenge him on this strategic context on, hold on just a second. Sure, maybe you've been attacked in a way which isn't consistent with the UN. But no one's forgetting what you guys have done over the past 50 years. And that's why even on Al Jazeera, you're finding that the panels he was on now have more people who are more strategically adapt and are much more vigorous in pushing back against him. It's like they're trying to figure out who can argue with him. It shows you the lack of consistency in messaging on the Arab side, which needs to change. Then you've got Professor Miranda, who has been a hit on American media, both mainstream and podcasters. And I know Iran, I know what they did. I remember the Iran-Iraq war. I know how they've wanted to do things which shouldn't be done. Let's keep it politely that way. But he's telling a very strong narrative and you've got people who are former Fox News anchors, religiously praising him on their podcasts. I mean, what world are we living in? It's their right. They have the right to tell their story as much as I disagree with it. But my point is they have communicated very effectively. And on the Arab side, just saying you guys are bad, where the victim is simply not enough. We need to be able to sharpen our language, stand in more alignment with our allies worldwide, and make it very, very clear that we are the ones who are here advocating for progress and growth and inclusiveness and welcoming people and building things. And Iran is where it is today because it's doing the opposite on all of that. And I don't think that story has been told properly. We need to get out of the victim mentality and show we are the builders, and we are going to continue on that path, no matter what. And indeed, maybe an opportunity for a more joined up communication strategy across some of the Gulf nations. But you referred to Iran's calm strategy as very effective, and I was certainly deferred to you on that. But how effective is it in an environment where you have this Trump factor, which seems to be upending everything we thought we knew about what effective communication looks like? If you were teaching a class on communication, or indeed counseling a client, you would never advise them to communicate in the manner that Trump does. How does that change the calculus? I know that UAE has a very effective government spokesman who you have cited in, I think, both of the briefings we've done. But how effective can you be when you're, I guess, in the arena with this agent of chaos? Great question. Iran's narrative and their comms is effective. Maybe not persuasive to everyone, but definitely effective. Not only because it's well planned and integrated and creative, but because it's up against the chaos and the terrible communications by the Trump administration. And the Gulf countries are caught in between. Had Iran been up against a James Baker, or a John Major, or other foreign service leaders who knew how to communicate effectively, there would be a lot more of a difference and there would be a lot more pushback against Iran's narrative. And the narrative of the Gulf countries would have been embellished and supported too. But there's a bit of cheapening by association. Anything the Gulf does is hinged to the Trump administration, unfortunately. And it is bringing down our story because we are connected to this gentleman who simply and clearly doesn't know what he's doing. And that's why the narrative changes. The messages change. The inconsistency. The tone of bombast. Trying to balance it out with being reasonable from time to time. It is just a masterclass in how not to do things. And I don't buy the argument among the Trump supporters that this is 4D chess, and he's actually spotted through and the rest of it. And I think it's just absolute sheer incompetence, sprinkled with a bit of stupidity and evil, to be honest. But, you know, the old-fashioned values of believe in what you're saying, stick to it, communicate consistently and clearly. Go to the audience is where they live, whether it's on a TikTok or the BBC or on Al Jazeera. And be honest and authentic. All of these old-fashioned principles remain. The only difference is our means of communicating them through AI and LLMs, has been changed and scaled in a way which is very exciting. We can actually get those authentic messages across to many more people. Unfortunately, not enough people are doing that. And the gap here isn't one of capability. It's one of courage. It's courageous communicators to tell the truth. Yeah. It's a great point. Mazen, let's talk a little bit about your journey because I think it's very interesting. And I'm not convinced that the whole global communications sector is as aware of it as they should be. You launched. I believe what was the first media intelligence business in the Middle East in 2002, if I'm not mistaken, and eventually that became, I think, by 2015, this global company that we know as Karma, which is possibly the biggest media intelligence company, certainly the biggest in this part of the world. But you are genuinely global. And you have also built another group called Rain, in which there are a number of marketing and communications businesses, including, for example, agencies like Brazen. And I know there are others whose names escape me right now. But you can tell me some of the other names. Brazen is the one I know best, of course. Yes, socialized. Socialized. Yes, of course. I had actually thought socialized was in, was with Karma. But so you have two groups. I mean, you are effectively a holding group leader from the Middle East. So that puts you in a very small category. Because as someone who's been covering this industry, we're not used to seeing comms holding groups emerge from non-Western regions, which just hasn't happened. And certainly not on a global scale. So how important to you is it to build global businesses, or is this just something that's happened organically? I mean, I have to be honest. I never thought with Go Global. You know, when I launched MediaWatch Middle East in 2002, there was a clue in the name. I just wanted to read the paper from four until nine o'clock, write a report, and then take the rest of the day off, and do that here in our own little region. But enough people wanted that. That company grew very rapidly, diversified, digitized. And by 2016, we thought, we have everything it takes to compete on a global stage. Why are we remaining in an artificially created region? And say, these are our boundaries. Tying your imagination to the geographic boundaries of your region doesn't really make sense, especially in a digital age. You know, I remember talking to different investor types who would say, we need to build a fortress in the region for someone to come and acquire us for a lot of money. And I thought, fortresses are something from the medieval times. No one does that anymore. It's all about mobility and firepower and space technology. And I believe, and I continue, I believe, Dan, and my management team and partners continue to believe. We have a great work ethic. You know, that Eastern schoolboy, schoolgirl ethic of just work really, really hard. But, you know, lunchtime, have the biggest laugh with your friends and play football and talk about whatever, and share exotic food and love life, and have a deep faith in the universe. And it shaped a culture within the company, which is proving to be, you know, globally resonant. You know, there is no sort of 9-5 mentality. There is no thinking around, well, why am I here? I'm obviously a bigger group now. We're over 1100 people. You're not going to have everyone on the same page. But, by and large, you feel in any news group office across Karma or Rain Worldwide, people share a vision and a hope and an aspiration. And I don't want to work with anyone who wants a job. I want to work with people who want to make a difference. And that's what I find exciting about during first, but I find exciting about so many different organizations in people worldwide who share that value. Now, from a tech value, from product perspective, because we were coming out of the Middle East, where we had to monitor and measure content and media data in two dozen small countries, and a few big ones like Egypt. We knew how to play across borders, and we understood the complexity of working in a multi-market environment. So when we went into Europe and into America and into Asia, it wasn't easy, and we definitely had big stumbles along the way. But we have pretty good businesses, which are very competitive and winning the largest clients worldwide. Karma now has 24 offices and 700 people around the world from the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, all the way to Washington and London, and everything in between. And I love the fact that our team work as one. They think in the same way, they argue where needed, but our operational backbone is a unified one. We didn't grow by acquisition, and when you want to log onto our platform, you have five different logins, because the business acquired five different businesses, and you need to navigate in a funny way around that. One sign on your logon, you get all of your information. You want to think about Chinese data. We have people on the ground to understand why an influencer with 800 people is important to a client, as opposed to bot, which might just spurn out the top 10 who are measured by total followers who might not be relevant to the client. So digging deep, I think, is an important part of what we do. Many communicators make a very big mistake of thinking that monitoring and measurement is a tool-led operation. It's not communications research is a practice, which requires practitioners who invest in methodology, which is articulated and managed through technology, and then finally, it works through consulting. It might sound funny to think that clipping is actually a consulting business, but it is. And in the age of AI, of custom AI, custom workflows, agentic orchestration, and at the end having very smart people who tell a story, your reputation has gone up or down for the following reasons. You're not living in the world of a tool at 5 grand a year. You're living in a world of practitioners who are your partners. So we've learned the lesson that we don't want to compete with dashboard companies who are there to just give you a password, charge 400, 500, quit the month, and walk away and say, see you at renewal time. And that's why people who are senior love karma. And the people who are junior might find karma a little bit intimidating, because we speak language which is different. All of that comes down to my old days working to PR agency where I found it very frustrating, monitoring what was out there, but I found it even more frustrating trying to show value, my value, my agency's value to apply it. They'd often say, well, just by the advertising and plaster everything I want for money. And I think it's a big, big challenge even today. One of the biggest reasons why comms isn't growing the way it can and should is people aren't showing their value. They're not proving their value. They're not measuring right. And we're stuck in this horrible trap of impressions and vanity metrics and clip books and dashboards, which mean absolutely nothing to a CEO. - Yeah, who else said, across the businesses, I believe you have a significant revenue now. If I'm not mistaken, closing in on 100 million, I don't know if you're comfortable talking about these numbers on the podcast, but. - We're not quite there yet. We're on that path, but we're closer to 80 at the moment. - Okay, not too far off and pretty significant for the comms world. What do you think holding groups like yours, communications businesses like yours that are not based in the Western world? What can the world learn from them? Because we are so used to learning from the groups that have emerged from the US and the UK. And of course, work ethic is one thing. We all know that. But what else do you think that businesses like yours which emerge from the Middle East or emerge from Asia? What do you think they can bring to the world? - Big, big question and a very important one. And I think the lessons there are in which I'll share with humility are relevant to people in Asia and to people in Europe and America. I think the first lesson is if you outward people, you're going to out-win your competition. It's just that simple. And I think unfortunately, in a lot of the Western economy, welfare practices and public services have reached a point where too many young working people are a little bit too coddled and don't actually have a sense for what real productivity looks like. Especially the COVID generation where working from your kitchen in your boxers with Abba and the background was normalized, that's not normal. And if you're in London and you're doing that and you think you're going to out-compete a Chinese AI engineer, you're wrong. If you're in America and you think you're going to be able to process data than a company in Mumbai, you're wrong. Most of the people in Asia did not have the opportunity to live under such an ecosystem. They have to work really hard just to survive. And I think that's the world that we all come from, from West Asia to East Asia. Now there are pockets of great wealth in Singapore, Abu Dhabi, et cetera. That's under 1% of Asia's population. The rest of us come from a lineage of Palestinian refugees like my dad and mom, or they come from no money at all. So you have to fight really hard. And when you do that in a European or in an American market, you get far very quick. I'm not saying of course that everyone in Europe in America doesn't work, absolutely not. But there is a growing culture, which I find alarming of people wanting jobs and not actually wanting to be productive. And so you often hear client side or even company side, some people saying, "Let's have a meeting to brainstorm what we're going to do in a planning meeting for the final meeting, which may happen in three months time." Like, "You can't do that." Or, "Why should we come into an office? Let's do everything on Zoom." But if you want to do 20 meetings a day, you can do that in an hour, in one and two minute conversations in an office. If you wanted them to be on Zoom, that would take you a week. So I think there needs to be a shake up. I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a pretty harsh economic pullback in the upcoming year or two, which will clear out a lot of bad habits, such as grown in different parts of the global economy generally, but in the Western particular. But that's my first point, just work hard. Work hard and out work other people, and you will get further. I think the second point would be very curious. As a journalist and then as a PR guy and now running this company, I'm always curious about what people think. I really care. I want to know. I'm trying to figure out day and night, how can I learn and create new ways of understanding people? You can only do that if you have that sort of deep sense of caring. If you don't, then you're not going to get very far. And I have to admit, having normal families helps create that sense of nurture and care. And I think that plays into the advantages that emerging markets companies have, because many of us might have come from not that much money or from a background in war or whatever, but we had the greatest wealth of all, just stable families. Even people who had a dad or a mom pass away, for example, they had grandparents and uncles and aunts in a bigger ecosystem, a family love which provides that stability and therefore confidence to do stuff. I think the third point to be having a global view, our markets don't have that much money compared to European or the American economies. That's changing quickly. But if you go to any city in India or even in China, take Shanghai and Beijing away, it's going to be tough to even compete with a city in Alabama from a GDP point of view or from per capita point of view. There's a long way to go. But until the Asian economy has become, you know, on par or even exceed the not PPP-based income or GDP or per capita, but gross per capita being on par. The reality is that you're going to have to play in a global marketplace because your home market just isn't big enough. And whether it's a karma or a tata steal or whatever, I think that's something that, you know, emerging markets entrepreneurs, they're starting to get and becoming much more confident about it. And I take inspiration from, you know, people buying Jaguar Land Rover and turning that around. There are so many great stories which began with a couple of bold moves 10, 15, 20 years ago and look at how far they've come. And the Volvo and Chinese involvement over there, you know, Newcastle and Saudi involvement over there. Newcastle fans know that club would have been maybe a league team right now if it hadn't been for that. So there are many great examples of being able to show thinking globally takes too much further. You need to be respectful of your local market. You need to know what people think and care about it. And finally, just bring that modern edge, you know, we have a great advantage of having very poor administrative structures and in most of age. And while that can be incredibly annoying in so many different ways, but it does mean that there's very little stopping you. And the only thing that up is your the limit of your imagination. And that's why you find these great creative minds, you know, migrating from Asia to Silicon Valley and running these great organizations because there was no limit on imagination. And I think that's one thing that the emerging markets really need to protect. Don't put limits on our ability to dream big. And I think that the key message for every emerging markets entrepreneur. Necessity as they often say here in India is the mother of innovation. And it's very necessary. Let me tell you if you've lived in India. But I feel very motivated by everything you just said then personally. And I would just perhaps add that one thing and it's kind of underlies many of your comments is just that comfort with diversity that. I think so many of us have right I think for sure you in the Gulf it's it's just so commonplace when you're so used to to dealing and living and working alongside people from such a bewildering range of nationalities and backgrounds. And not just in terms of where they're from but what they've seen what they've experienced in life is often very, very different from the very homogenous communications sector that you sometimes see in more developed places. So that's another interesting point. And that's magnifying a lot of people coming from Europe and America wanting to be in Singapore in Abu Dhabi in Mumbai in Japan because they're breaking those artificial limits on imagination. They are right or hard left or woke or conservative whatever there are just too many barriers to free thinking arising in the west sounds shocking even to me when I say it. But that's what I see you have economic bureaucracy and political limitations growing exponentially and it doesn't seem to have anyone stopping that and saying let's go back to what Europe and America looked like in the 50s. But I think that's what I think is a great dream imagine hopefully that will come back. Yeah it's it's no there's no question it's a very interesting phase for some of these western countries. But for those of us in the in the east or in the global south. There's much to ponder in terms of what you said. I'd like to ask you about but I fear we are short of time so we will have to get you back for another episode I hope in the not too distant future. Mazen thank you so much. All the best with everything you're doing at the moment and of course take care and stay safe in the current situation and I very much hope to see you soon. My pleasure. Thank you a room. Big thank you to our production partners at AirShot Media.