What a week! In Dubai I have been deepening my understanding of the relationships amongst senior leaders in my client organisation whilst also deepening my understanding of the wider context which is Dubai.

Throughout the week I have been amongst people of many nationalities. I listened to my Pakistani taxi driver tell me last Sunday how much he dislikes Indians. I received a hearty handshake and a warm welcome from my client company’s Sudanese driver on my return. I was astonished by the number of staff members of many nationalities whose faces beamed as they welcomed me back to my hotel and asked me how I’d been since my last visit. I said no to the drink that Peter, a fellow guest whom I met on my last visit, ordered for me – and to the invitations that went with it. This morning, at Dubai airport, I was struck by the graceful beauty of an African woman who, pulling her suitcase behind her, also carried her shopping, hands free, on her head.

Since my visit in October the beginnings of a ripple effect of the global economic situation have become waves. Property prices are dropping and mortgages are going up. There is talk of a shake-out in the banking sector. Construction projects are already being scaled back. Any idea that Dubai might be recession-proof has been shown – quickly – to be untrue. In case we needed a reminder, any idea that national boundaries keep us in any way separate are hard, in this economic climate, to maintain.

And then Mumbai. As if it isn’t enough that the men responsible for a rising death-toll in Mumbai have targeted British and American people, the news is slowly emerging that a number of the men involved in perpetrating the attacks are from Britain. As I left the plane at Heathrow on my return from Dubai, the invitation to anyone who had been in Mumbai at the time of the attacks to speak with police officers on leaving the plane was a reminder of just how small the world has truly become. It’s all so close to home.

We are all connected. But how? And how do we want to be connected in future? I think of the possibilities for a world in which we choose dialogue and understanding above violence and aggression – surely our history is teaching us how little violence brings! I think of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and of the work, more recently, of Marshall Rosenberg in the field of nonviolent communication.

And then I come home, knowing that I cannot change the others, I can only choose my own behaviour. The journey towards non-violence begins here, with me.