Nobody changes it alone

In an old covered market in Ras Al Khaimah, most of the stalls now show their prices on small handwritten cards. For decades, none did. Every price was a conversation, and the conversation went differently depending on your accent.

The story people like to tell about change has one hero in it. A rebel with a vision, who ignores everyone, takes the risk alone and is proved right in the end. It makes a good film. It is a poor account of how anything stubborn actually moves.

Here it began with two neighbouring stallholders, brothers, who were tired of watching visitors walk away rather than haggle. They put cards on a few items. Nobody else followed. For a whole season the cards looked like a strange private habit.

They did not lecture the market. They talked to the stallholder opposite, who already grumbled about the same thing, and then to his friend at the end of the row. They swapped notes on what sold. Each new stall that tried it did so because someone it trusted had, not because anyone made a speech.

A burst of effort would have achieved nothing. An old market is very good at outlasting enthusiasm. What it could not outlast was a small group, connected to one another, that kept doing the same quiet thing month after month until it became the normal thing.

That is what most real change looks like. A few people, not one. Beginning with the handful who already agree, never with everyone. Patient, and joined up.

One of the brothers is past sixty. Going first is not reserved for the young. It is only more tiring than standing by, which is why so many of us stand by.