Discourse on globalisation

GLOBALIZATION — The Imperial Thrust of Modernity: Ninan Koshy — Editor; Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, D-1, Shivdham, 62, Link Road, Malad West, Mumbai-400064. Price not mentioned.

CULTURAL GLOBALISATION, in its gargantuan operation, will defeat the fundamental guarantee of national identities and bastardise people's basic values. The Human Development Report, 1999 makes some important observations on globalisation and culture, under the heading "Cultural Insecurity".

The peril to the nations of the South is the liquidation of their native ethos and colonial surrender to Western domination. Cultural imperialism is the conquest of nationalism and socio-economic independence resulting in a craven alienation of a country from its own roots and sense of swaraj. Once this happens, life-style changes, subjugation of traditions and mores occur and western imposed, mostly Yankee, monoculture of the mind takes place, insurrection against which is the only salvation for swaraj. But globalisation has dug in so deep and expanded so fast that resistance is fruitless unless carried out on a people-oriented macro scale. But can this happen?

Globalisation is the highest form of modernity in human history and is an interlocking phenomenon of a dynamic nature. The power of capital is such today that a financially-led globalised capitalism is structurally evolving with the tremendous support of advances in tendentious information technology. An ethical evaluation of the ideology of globalisation reveals another dangerous dimension of this menacing development. "Here the language used is very important. We hear about the `blessings' of the free market and the `sacrifices' that are needed before the blessings are showered in full. The rationalisation of ideologies here brings in a pseudo-religious element". The powerful magic accompanying the dynamics of globalisation creates pseudo-gods which claim submission and demand sacrifice. In this malefic milieu, what about sustainable development, and its enemies — technological terrorism and environmental invasion — where even the sky is not the limit? The answer to this mad challenge is a sober realism about what the Earth can carry and what people can. The ethical dilemma of globalisation summons a core of shared values and principles spelt out by the UNESCO thus — Human Rights and Responsibilities; Democracy and the Elements of a Civil Society; The Protection of Minorities: Commitment to Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts: Equity Within and Between Generations.

The Cold War, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, came to an end and then emerged an arrogant empire ready for global capture by a Super-Power disguised as "a world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations" (Bush). What a contradiction of the reality!

In the era of globalisation the most powerful non-state actors are the transnational corporations. The increasing marginalisation of the state as an economic actor leads to a contrary role for the state. Niilus, in his paper, explains that the state is becoming a facilitator of the private market.

All these accumulated evils climax in a sum-up by Ninan Koshy — a major shift in the paradigm of state intervention, a fundamental change in its welfare commitment, a substantial reduction in sovereignty, the addition of supra-territorial constituents, reduction of social security provisions and weaker realisation of democracy through the state. The hegemonic power of the U.S. is operated through instrumentalities like the World Bank and the IMF, which are "brutal colonial institutions, controlled by Washington, an organiser of creditors that squeezes the world's poorest countries for debt services or loans they cannot ever hope to repay." Koshy examines the role of the WTO, which assumes and performs undemocratically some of the functions of the world government. "Agreements under the WTO and other trade organisations impose a new global constitutionalism. The growth of social movements challenging the hegemony of bodies like the IMF and the WTO and their demand for the restructuring of these institutions is a welcome development."

The U.N., potentially a most useful instrument, is now lapsing into dormancy, lending itself to easier management by the U.S. The Bretton Woods instruments debilitate, through processes of globalisation, all institutions within the U.N. with orientation to the concern of developing nations. The U.N.'s `global compact', with 50 of the world's biggest and most controversial corporations, hastened it into an enforcement agency for the global economy, keeping Western companies to penetrate new markets while avoiding the regulation which would be the only effective means of holding them to account.

Today, civil society is considered to be the main locus of resistance against the state and the main moral reserve of the social order, but whether civil society is capable of coping with the demands that result from the processes of structural adjustment and the downsizing of the state is a moot question. In any case, civil society can be no substitute for the state, which is ebbing in the face of international corporate onslaught. The combination of globalisation and modernity has come to be a vision of the globe as an empty space for economic conflict by the West.

Now comes a new factor viz. globalisation and the war on terror. September 11, 2001 is a turning point in world values. The U.S. President, George W. Bush, made two declarations of war. The first one was soon after the September 11 events. He declared a war on terror. He said that the immediate aim of the war was to bring Osama bin Laden to justice or bring justice to him. Since bin Laden was in Afghanistan and the Taliban Government refused to hand him over to the U.S., the war on terror became a war against Afghanistan. The second declaration of war was made by the President in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2001, when he spoke of the next stage of the war on terror identifying Iraq, Iran and North Korea as parts of an "axis of evil". The war on terror is the US response to the events of September 11, 2001.

As the author puts it, the present period of history may be called the War Terror period. In an acid but valid comment upon the present era, he says: "When the attacks occurred, two claims were made. One was that it was an attack on justice, freedom and democracy all over the world. So the whole `civilised' world had to respond. When something happened in the U.S. it was projected as the overriding concern for the whole world. When atom bombs killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a matter for the Japanese. The Rwanda genocide was a Rwandan affair. When on another September 11 (1973) terror came down from the skies to destroy a democratically elected President and his Government in Chile it was for the Chileans to worry. The East Timor massacres were only concern for the East Timorese. The universalist claims of events in the U.S. tend to relativise, if not ignore, the destinies and tragedies of other nations and peoples. There are serious ethical issues involved in such claims." The other claim is dealt with by Stanley Hoffman in the following way: "As soon as the shock of the terror attack on New York and Washington was felt, commentators began saying that September 11, 2001 marked the beginning of a new era in world affairs. It is a misleading interpretation of a horrible event. What was new was the demonstration that a small number of well-organised conspirators could cause thousands of victims in the territory of the `only superpower' and thus show that the U.S. was not any safer from attack than far less mighty nations". In the same article Hoffman warned: "A determined project of ridding the world of all rogues and terrorists would be seen as demonstration of rabid imperialism".

Globalisation and militarisation is the legitimisation of super-power terrorisation. The dilemma of our time, in the words of Ninan Koshy, is that "Globalisation promotes inequality, unrest, conflict, economic inequality is greening: more conflicts and civil wars are emerging. It is important to see a connection between these two situations."

Geography is losing its significance. Nation states are losing their relevance. A new imperialism is becoming world realism. In his words again, "Is the answer to terrorism, colonialism? Globalisation buttressed by military might of the U.S. is an important part of the architecture of the new global order". Tony Blair is right: "The war against terrorists is a wider war for a new world order."

In this excellent collection of papers, we have a value-laden view, a new insight, an understanding of a new dimension of globalisation "red in tooth and claw". A territorial dimension has been added to globalisation. The Indian intellectual must be grateful to Koshy for the painstaking publication which presents a critical study of the new world (dis)order. We are victims and witnesses. We have a duty to this generation to awake and arise. Are we ready to redeem our tryst with destiny?

V. R. KRISHNA IYER

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