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How
global are we? A Christian's view of globalisation
by Stephen Harris, Wellington,
Feburary, 2003
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The
scale of global challenges often seems daunting and disempowering.
We feel like tiny specks on a huge screen. "Lord, your sea
is so wide and my boat is so small". What can we possibly
do that will be more than a drop in that ocean?
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In the globalising
world the instantly recognisable logo has become a symbol of exploitation
- even oppression - in the minds of many. It has marched in at
the shoulder of armies, which have brutally repressed the rights
of local interests to maintain traditional lifestyles. Big money
in cahoots with corrupt and often-violent despots. It has, in
short, become all-conquering.
Is this your
view of the cross? Nike or Shell maybe. But remember that Christianity
was the first true globalising force. Unlike the Romans or the
empires that went before them, the crusaders and many "civilisers"
of at least the past nine hundred years have wielded the cross
no less than the sword. Columbus's ship, Santa Maria, bore a red
cross on its sails.
I started
with the example I did just to illustrate that what we all might
regard as one positive globalising force - Christianity - isn't
seen that way by everyone.
"Globalisation."
What do we mean? When Bill Clinton was President, he ordered that
no-one in his Administration was to use the word because it was
not specific. All around us, maybe, but not specific. We, too,
need to be careful in our thinking about what we mean by "globalisation."
It's a term riddled with contradictions. One I like is the way
anti-globalisers rally support over the internet. We also need
to be clear about the results of globalisation. And we need to
get behind the motives of the globalisers to get any sort of meaningful
grasp on whether certain aspects of globalisation should encourage
us or concern us.
Three faces
of globalisation
Before we make sweeping judgments about whether globalisation
is a "good" or a "bad" phenomenon, we have to try to get a handle
on what we're actually referring to. It seems to me the debate
is about three broad themes, often interlinked: The first is economic
- is the world becoming one great big marketplace where borders
cease to matter? Secondly, is cultural diversity being
rubbed out, mostly by the global mass media? Thirdly, what rules
are being put in place to regulate this process, and are they
working? I'll conclude by suggesting an approach I have found
useful in making sense of all this from a Christian perspective.
I want to
dispatch the concerns about globalisation at the cultural level
first up. The French have recently become so concerned about the
inroads of American messages they banned English from advertising
billboards. A little extreme, perhaps, but if the French are worried,
how must many smaller nations feel?
Culture
and identity
As a journalist by training yes, I am concerned by the amalgamation
of media mega-networks by moguls like Rupert Murdoch. But there's
so much choice now - not so little - that I can choose to watch
something else. That's globalisation. In the political sphere,
nations are not losing their identity as the world increasingly
develops along regional lines. East Timor, the new parliament
in Scotland, the Baltic states, the former Yugoslavia….New nations
are being formed and peoples are finding their distinctive voices,
not becoming global androids. People are tribal. Parochialism
is in good shape. Much as Christians talk about the universal
church, we all know that even Christians are a very motley lot.
A global
economy
Looming larger for most people when we think of globalisation
is its economic dimension. Here the phenomenon has a much more
mixed pedigree.
I am a strong
believer in the potential for trade to spur economic development.
There is a huge body of evidence supporting that. For example,
the average South Korean or Taiwanese is nine times richer today
than in 1970. Trade made that possible. North Korea is the counter
example, if you still need convincing. And economic development
is usually a seedbed for social and political development - a
two-edged sword China is clearly grappling with.
So, why the
concern? Is the target of anti-globalisers the power of multi-national
corporations to corner large chunks of the world market in their
goods and services?
- Or to
use their economic muscle and political connections to influence
the rules to suit themselves? If so, that's hardly a new phenomenon.
Look at the British East India Company or United Fruit in Central
America.
- Or is it
concern at the wages these multinationals pay their workers?
- certainly pitiful by western stands, but for many a ticket
out of abject rural poverty.
Is it the
ever-present nature of global brands - Coca Cola, Nike, IBM, McDonalds
to name a few? They're successful only because we want to buy
them. Look at the Swatch phenomenon, which brought the Swiss watch
industry - and all the jobs in it - back from oblivion.
A polarisation
of views
The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, believes trade can do more
to alleviate poverty than any other single measure. Yet there
is clearly a polarisation of views about what we conveniently
label "globalisation." Some of the reasons can be read in the
statistics:
- Half the
world lives on less than two US dollars a day each
- A quarter
of all the people in developing countries can't read
- Per capita
exports by developing countries amount to a twelfth those of
the wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development
Obviously
globalisation has not cured poverty. But I note that while developing
countries make up 40 percent of the world's population they account
for only three percent of global trade. That tells me that one
answer is not less trade but more of it - so that these poorer
nations can lift themselves out of poverty, just as South Korea,
Taiwan and other Asian "tigers" have done.
Global
institutions and global challenges
So if trade is not the rogue gene of globalisation, what is? For
me, an important starting point for how globalisation can be made
to slice up the resources pie more evenly is to look at global
institutions. The disruption is happening on a global scale, so
why not call in a global policeman? There are two problems with
this. Firstly, global responses to global challenges cut against
our notions of democracy, which is rooted in local communities.
People say our sovereignty is undermined. But an environmental
crisis, such as an oil spill, or a poison gas cloud or an epidemic
won't stop at the border, so neither should the countermeasures.
The second
problem is that some global institutions seem to make some problems
worse. Look at the plight of coffee growers. Forced by the IMF
or the World Bank to replace food crops with a cash crop for export,
many can't even cover the cost of production. This is policy failure
- a dumb idea in other words - and should be condemned as such.
Globalisation may be the scene of the crime, but it is not the
criminal.
Technology
roadblocks
My other big concern is that the globalisation race is increasingly
being won by those with the most expensive skates. Advances in
technology are so rapid that poorer countries simply can't afford
the hardware - let alone possess the skills - to keep up. A few
years ago I worked for German shortwave radio, broadcasting to
many parts of the Third World. We lost a big chunk of our budget
to the director-general's new sugar-baby, satellite television.
It made him look good. Deutsche Welle TV. Maybe you watch it.
The problem was, most of our audience in Africa and South Asia
were dependent on scarce short wave radios; they certainly had
no hope of tuning in to satellite TV.
Technology
- particularly communications technology - is crucial to helping
that 40 percent of the world who live in developing countries
to share the benefits globalisation.
Maybe this
is one area where the debate about "fair" trade versus "free"
trade should be weighed up. But in doing so, we need to keep our
eye on motives. After rioting shut down the World Trade Organisation
talks in Seattle three years ago, it was alleged that some of
the rioters were funded by an American textiles conglomerate.
This firm wanted to protect its home market from increased imports,
by scuttling efforts to open the US market to cheaper imports
from the developing world. The unions wanting to protect jobs
found common cause with big business wanting to protect profits.
Yet that same conglomerate wanted to be able to keep exporting
- in some cases to developing countries. This shows why I think
"fair" is a very subjective term.
Fair play
depends on rules
It's true, the system is still skewed in favour of the big players.
New Zealand faces raised drawbridges all around the world and
earns lower profits as a result - along with most of the developing
world.
Yet rules
of some sort are hugely important. They can be the great leveler
of opportunity for small, trade-dependent countries like New Zealand.
We have been among the strongest supporters of the so-called "development
agenda" of the current negotiations in the World Trade Organisation,
or WTO. This is not just about equipping poorer members - who
make up two-thirds of the WTO's 144 members - to make better use
of the opportunities created. It is also about such survival basics
as getting drugs at more affordable prices to the 30 million AIDS
sufferers in the developing world.
International
rules are no less a feature of globalisation than brands, multinationals
or, for that matter, international crime like money-laundering
and the drugs trade. Those rules contribute to international stability
by disciplining global trade, just as the United Nations helps
to police benchmarks of international conduct in the political
and security sphere. This is global governance.
Does this
global governance represent a new order that should make us feel
more comfortable that "globalisation" is not running amok? And
where have we, as Christians, heard that phrase - "a new world
order" - before? I'm not referring to President George W. Bush
post-September 11, nor his dad after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The phrase
comes from one of the very first modern globalisers - Saint Paul.
In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul speaks of
a "new order…for anyone united to Christ." He goes on to describe
this new order as just as much a point of departure as a point
of arrival. "God has enlisted us in this ministry of reconciliation….we
are therefore Christ's ambassadors." (2 Corinthians 5:18 & 20)
How might
Christians respond?
Yet the scale of global challenges often seems daunting and disempowering.
We feel like tiny specks on a huge screen. "Lord, your sea is
so wide and my boat is so small". What can we possibly do that
will be more than a drop in that ocean?
Christ's ambassadors.
For me, this provides a pretty powerful contrast to the de-personalised
nature of so much we call "globalisation." Globalisation is no
different from other big themes confronting us as Christians.
It challenges us personally. It also gives us authority to act
according to a universal vision that is inclusive, not diminishing
nor dehumanising.
We've probably
all heard Marshall McLuhan's phrase "the global village" and may
even wonder where Paul's reference to "God's household" fits into
that.
An open
house in the village
It creates an obligation to people both in that household
and an obligation to help others wanting to come in. And in the
global village not much goes unnoticed by the neighbours - both
within the household's thin walls and as we come and go. As with
any family or community, there is a causal chain between neglect
and dysfunction - even violence. Globalisation means that chain
is becoming shorter all the time. It would be stating the obvious
to itemise the examples of that as the effects of epidemics, debt
crises and international terrorism reverberate with scant regard
to national - or wealth - boundaries.
We have probably
all heard the phrase "think globally, act locally." A few years
ago, New Zealand won a fiercely contested seat on the United Nations
Security Council. Part of that success was due to winning the
collective support of African nations. Some of their delegates
said they voted for New Zealand because of experiences with kiwi
backpackers who had stopped during their overland trips through
Africa, and had helped to build wells or other village projects.
They were behaving very much like Christ's ambassadors - whether
they realised it or not.
What we do
can make a difference if our motives are sound. Whether the new
international order that politicians like George Bush talk about
bears any resemblance to the one that inspired Paul may depend
on the President's motives - and on our collective efforts to
reconcile a divided world. God's household sits squarely on the
busiest corner of the global village.
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