Strategic Foresight Group is a product of twenty first century globalisation. We function because of the Internet, inexpensive conference calls across continents, and affordable airfares (though the latter might change with oil prices expected to reach $100 per barrel). We have collaborators around the world who are concerned about shifting global paradigms, and not merely their own geographies. One of them, Dr. Frank-Jurgen Richter is a German national, who lives in France with an office in Switzerland, and specialises in China. Mr. Sompal has a home in India and works in Rwanda, going back and forth, to help President Kagame revive agriculture in his country. I regularly confer with HRH Prince Turki al Faisal, Saudi Ambassador to UK, now probably moving to the United States, at World Economic Forum meetings at Davos and Dead Sea. Mr. Graham Watson, a British political leader at the European Parliament in Brussels, collaborates with us to engage Prime Minister Erdogan and other leaders of Turkey.

We are not at all unique in benefiting from globalisation. Recently Semu, my special assistant, who is very fond of shopping, took a break from an international seminar on terrorism to find that shops in Cologne were filled with goods from India and her neighbouring countries.

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf coast in the United States, Sri Lanka contributed to relief efforts, while the Sri Lankans themselves seek Norwegian mediation to resolve their ethnic conflict.

When globalisation creates a world of opportunity, why does it attract virulent opposition? A few months ago, BBC World Television hosted a phone-in programme on globalisation. In 60 minutes, each and every call expressed outrage against globalisation and the institutions that symbolise it.

In order to understand the contradictions of today’s world, we need a new analytical framework. Each country individually and the world at large, are divided into the business class and the periphery. The business class represents people who have access to the Internet in their office and white goods in their kitchens, who fly regularly (though not necessarily by J class) and who have friends or business contacts abroad. The rest form the periphery. Sometimes the periphery may be further divided into different categories. It’s only the business class people who participate in globalisation.

In India and China – two countries that are projected as the new stars of the world economy – the business class constitutes a mere 2.2% and 6% of the population respectively. In the United States it accounts for 60% of the population. In countries like Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Nepal, the business class accounts for less than 1%. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a new shopping mall has come up – Vasundhara. A superficial glance projects a very vibrant economy and a dynamic market. But a look beneath the superficial level reveals that those who frequent, Vasundhara are feudal lords from the world of NGOs, exporters, government officials and politicians. A typical, lucky Bangladeshi works in a garment factory, surrounded by barbed wires, earning one dollar a day. A typically unlucky Bangladeshi works in a paddy field dreaming of finding a job in the garment factory with barbed wires.

Globalisation is confined to the business class in each country. The people belonging to the business class in each country combine to form a global business class. They nurture each other beyond nationalistic and religious loyalties. For instance, the windows of shops in Milan display the most expensive of luxury goods. Not too far away in residential colonies, Italians live in run down apartments. Obviously they do not have Euros to purchase fashion statements. These shops cater to the business classes flying in from Seoul and Dubai to Moscow and Lagos.

It’s not only in countries like India and China or Russia and Nigeria that the smart and small business classes cause resentment in the periphery. It’s also in Europe and the United States that the periphery is facing neglect, however, the periphery in these countries is comparatively small. In the United States, for example, out of 112 million households, 30 million households earn less than $2000 per month. Most of them don’t own cars or washing machines. We are talking about one among every four Americans. Hurricane Katrina with an extremely unfortunate blow exposed the economic condition of some of these people living at the periphery. The truth about the life of one third of the people living in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky and most of the heartland states of the United States is not known. But it’s not necessary to go that far to understand it. A visit to the working class segments in Cairo or Rio will do.

A big question of our time is how globalisation can be made relevant to the marginal people of the world. It is not a question of scarcity or abundance of resources. It’s not even a question of distribution of resources. It’s a question of creating real freedom of opportunity, where people, and not merely capital, can earn good returns for their participation in the economy.

If globalisation of opportunity is divorced from over 80% of the people who live in the global periphery, a globalisation of risk will expand. In the last ten years, when globalisation saw its most unprecedented growth, terrorists inflicted over 20,000 attacks. Currently, there are close to 190 strong, self-sustaining terrorist groups around the world, almost as many as nations on the roster of the United Nations. They draw human and financial resources from a pool of criminals and extremists and sympathy from a much larger body of the despaired. Of course, many of the terrorist groups are hand maidens of powerful men who abuse ideologies and unemployment to protest against power of the business class, though what they really want is power for themselves. The periphery is squeezed from every side – the global business class that neglects it and the global criminal class that pays attention to it and then severely exploits it.

We, at Strategic Foresight Group are aware of the responsibility that goes with belonging to the global business class. We project the details of doom, caused by distortions in the patterns of growth and governance, to alert policy makers and fervently hope that they do everything possible so as to prove us wrong. We also project hope when policy makers adopt corrective paths. It’s a strange business to be in. But it’s worthwhile since it is one small contribution to reduce the chasm between global business class and periphery.