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Canada & the UN > Newton Bowles Reports
ANNEX 4 Failing Currencies, Recriminations, Who's to
Blame? Ill-effects of Globalization I have tried to draft an agenda for an alternative approach to McWorld, a developmental approach to globalization consisting of four steps. First, efforts to phase and sequence full access of nations into the global market, using transparent criteria, aimed at protecting nations and citizens. Second, to guide the process by strengthening public international institutions in order to countervail transnational economic power. Third, to strengthen the capacity of the world polity to deal with the so-called non-economic dimensions of the global market: ecology, climate, diseases, poverty, the prevention and management of identity conflicts. Fourth, support to movements within nations to strengthen democracy, human rights, civil liberties and the cultural pluriformity of societies. I also made a plea to link the last to the first in order to avoid a growing divergence between the global market and global civilization. The present world is still characterized by an immense variety of peoples, societies, beliefs, traditions, languages and cultures. Globalization risks annexing them into a Western technological and economic monoculture. This is a great risk indeed, because the technologically modern channels of cultural communication-- the media, advanced educational systems and information networks-- are increasingly commercially financed and bring a uniform message, based on a Western materialistic lifestyle. Insofar as that lifestyle sets people free from the bonds of religious or tribal oppression, this is a message worthwhile to be communicated anywhere in the world. Insofar as it lures people into new dependencies by attempting to impose cultural uniformity, the result is colonization of people rather than setting them free. It would be a great pity if globalization would have this effect. It would not only be the opposite of progress but also breed dissent and resistance, not so much from those who feel excluded by globalization but by those who feel overwhelmed by it. A cultural backlash against this form of proselytism is sure to follow. It will be very hard to counter the dislocation and degeneration of society that results. There are endless problems to which we need answers. What is the relationship between ethnicity and violence? Is fundamentalism primarily a cultural phenomenon? How do we defeat the opposition to female empowerment? How do we deal with the confrontation between those who adhere to the
universality of human rights and those who prefer culturally determined
human rights? These questions are of existential importance to us all. |
