Globalization

(First of two parts). Globalism is one of those notions much kicked around and little understood, shrouded in hysteria and knee-jerk cant. People with a host of grievances against technology, multinational corporations and capitalist democracies have made globalism a dirty word, at the same time that many social scientists and economists argue that the equitable spread of technology and a free-market economy is the planet's best hope. Either way, September 11 makes it clear that globalization - pitting fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance - is one of the most important issues in our lifetimes.

In fact, as British political scientist Anthony Giddens writes in his eerily prescient book Runaway World: How Globalism is Reshaping Our Lives, the conflict now underway between the United States and some extremist fundamentalists was inevitable. Cosmopolitans welcome technology and cultural diversity, while fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous.

In a globalizing world -- one of its cornerstones being the Net -- technology, information, culture, money, business and imagery are routinely transmitted across the world. Boundaries mean different things now, including the inescapable fact that they are highly porous. This enrages political, social and religious fundamentalists, as we are hurriedly learning. They turn to religion, ethnic identity and nationalism to build "purer" traditions -- and a few turn to violence.

So despite the fact that there's no consensus on exactly what globalism is (my dictionary defines it as the process by which social institutions become adopted on a worldwide scale), the questions torment us: is globalism a force to ease poverty and inequality, by bringing higher standards of living and new technologies to poor and distant regions? Or merely an unprecedented vehicle for promoting the greed, conformity, environmental destruction and profit-at-all-cost ethos of multinational corporations? Perhaps it's both.

Giddens' predictions are coming true before our eyes. The conflict is here, and we seem to be unwilling and unknowing combatants. We, along with our leaders, are astonished at just how much we seem to be hated out there. We see our popular and technological culture despised in much of the world. Fundamentalist extremists have declared a holy war against it, one that may continue for years with bloody and uncertain consequences.

It's not an oversimplification to say that technology is the prime battleground. Technologies from movie cameras to TV sets to the Net are the means by which culture and wealth travel from one part of the world to the other. Fundamentalists have declared war on technology as much as on anything. And from anthrax to passenger jets as missiles, they've shown a sophisticated grasp of how technology can be used to devastating effect against its creators, who revel in making it but not thinking much about it.

In this conflict what Giddens calls "the cosmopolitan approach" is the choice of the people who are reading this column and working in the tech universe. We value free speech, religious freedom, scientific exploration, open communications, cultural choice and diversity. Such tolerance is closely conected to democracy.

Yet democracy and fundamentalism are both spreading world-wide, two seemingly irreconcilable ideologies colliding head-on. As Giddens points out, globalism creates a paradox: democratic cultures are its most enthusiastic proponents, yet globalism doesn't seem to promote democracy so much as corporate profits and practices. In fact, you could argue that globalism seems to expose the limits of democratic structures: Can governments preserve the environment, keep work secure and equitable, ensure fair wages, control capitalism, distribute new technologies equitably, respect diverse cultural values, contain greed and restrict the imagery that Americans love but that frightens and offends large segments of the world population?

In Part Two: Have multinationals hijacked globalism? (Yes.)

Comments

Re:Actually...

[AugstWest]

Well, more information has surfaced recently, as more documents become declassified.

There was a good bit on it at newsday.com, but they pulled it. Here's google's cache of it.

This one's a bit extreme:

In a civilized world, Mr. Negroponte would not be a candidate for high public office; he would be on trial for crimes against humanity. As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, he oversaw the supply mission for U.S.-trained "Contra" terrorists, based in Honduras, who waged war against the people and government of Nicaragua. Part of that campaign involved ensuring that the regime in Honduras received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid, despite its dismal human-rights record. Thus, when Battalion 316, a CIA-trained body of the Honduran army, slaughtered hundreds of alleged dissidents and kidnapped and tortured hundreds of others, Mr. Negroponte turned a blind eye. In reports to his government, he consistently claimed that the Honduran regime bore no responsibility for the wave of atrocities unleashed in that country. This week, Mr. Negroponte, an architect of terror and the illegal violation of state sovereignty, will be confirmed as the U.S. representative to a forum - the United Nations - whose Charter is based on respect for the sovereignty of all countries, whether rich or poor, and which claims to safeguard the rights of all human beings, whether powerful or powerless.

Hell, it's not even a complete sentence, but it gets the point across.

Re:Actually...

[Zeinfeld]

And neither is Arafat. He is directly responsible for what is going on right now. This second Intifada was started by his failure to negotiate with Barak when a deal was on the table which would have brought peace and Palestinian statehood. The deal was rejected, the violence started, then Sharon was elected.

You miss out one important step. The violence started the day that Sharon forced his way into the Mosque on the temple mount.

Sharon's behaviour was a deliberate attempt to incite a violent reaction which he calculated would be to his personal political advantage.

Sharon's strategy worked, he became Prime Minister before Netanyahu managed to complete his political comeback from the corruption allegations that had caused him to loose office.

As for the settlements, I don't believe that they are being extended, nor is any land being taken to make room for them (certainly not now),

According to Haaretz the number of settlements has doubled since the Oslo accords were signed. Confiscations of land to build settlements have taken place without any pause since the Sharon government came to power.

The US has repeatedly demanded that Israel stop building settlements and withdraw from those built since Oslo. As always these demands have been ignored, the Israeli right being confident that they can get the Congress to vote them whatever subsidies Israel demands.

but it's not particularly more right to suggest the Israelis living there should be kicked out than anybody else at this point.

So if you come and take my house the fact you have taken it from me means that I have no rights whatsoever to demand its return?

The Israelis occupying the West Bank and Gaza know that they are living on stolen land, in many cases they stole the land themselves at the point of a gun. What possible objection can there be to demanding that the land be returned to the people it was stolen from? Why should the US subsidize the settlers occupation? In Bosnia the settler's type of behavior was called 'ethnic cleansing'.

The Barak peace plan was never a possibility, you only need to look at a map to see why. Israel would keep practically all the settlements and control all the borders of the Palestinian state.