One World or Not?

Is it so hard to imagine a world in which all people wear Tommy Hilfiger clothes, Nike shoes, walk around sipping Coca Cola and munching on their Big Macs? Obviously, it does not. The only thing that we can change in that rather depressing picture is the brand names we mentioned. Maybe instead of Tommy Hilfiger, we will all wear Gap, or whatever the brand of �super-cool�, extra casual attire will win.

By the same standard, in such a world we will all rise to the sounds of the same synthetic music, will read the same books, and will glorify the neo-liberal philosophy of free-market economy.

You must have recognized the symptoms, and once you recognize the symptoms, it is much easier to give a diagnosis. The diagnosis in this case would be � globalization.

But what is globalization?

�At a top political and economic level, globalization is the process of denationalization of markets, politics and legal systems, i.e., the rise of the so-called global economy.� That is the definition offered by the International Globalization Forum, an internet portal that facilitates the debate on the globalization. That debate, which involves international organizations, governmental institutions and the academic world discusses the consequences of that political and economic restructuring on the local economies, human welfare and the environment.

That debate is getting increasingly heated. On one side we have the standard bearers of the globalization, the holy triumvirate of the IMF, the WorldBank and the WTO. The people sitting on the boards of these financial institutions are rightly considered the high priests of the new "religion" of free market economy. They make the crucial decisions about the pace and the methods of development a country or a society will use and apply, they decide who and when and where, not to mention why or how.

Globalization, we see, is becoming a rather militant concept. Little dissent is tolerated, small is the window for indigenous cultures, local identities, workers� rights and union movements. The environment which is so meticulously guarded from any wrongdoing in the countries of the industrialized North (or West, depending on the location of the observer) is left at the mercy of both multinational corporations, who couldn't care less and governments that are well aware that they should catch up as soon as they can. In such a situation, environmental protection is a luxury that can create only problems.

Naturally, the globalization has many proponents, but also many opponents. All over the world, trade union activists, environmentalists, human rights activists, fight the corporate idea of global markets that cares not about workers� rights, just wages, environmental protection and cultural diversity. The opponents come from both sides of the political spectrum, from the nationalist and particularistic right and from the internationalist left.

One could even say that the so-called anti-globalization is predominantly a concept of the political right, who are ruled by nationalism, xenophobia and racism. On the left, on the other hand, a more fitting name might be "alter-globalization". Activists all over the world would like make the World a single society, but a society that will provide welfare for all, instead of the current situation in which billions of underprivileged toil in sweatshops in the Philippines or Africa, while the profits are reaped by the few corporations that run the show.

The situation is confusing, as far as the region is concerned. First of all, the people here don�t have the luxury of living in the industrialized West, so they would first get a hint of what is going on, get to exploit somebody in the Third World, and then make up their minds about the moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding it. On the other hand, the privatization processes, the restructuring of the economies and the rising unemployment that resulted brings the first whiffs of what the IMF�s idea of globalization is.

The local activism just appears. Here and there, we have concerned individuals, intellectual, groups, like MAMA in Croatia, Macedonian Social Forum in Macedonia, Professor Grubacic in Belgrade or Fadil Maloku in Kosovo. There are, alas, too few and too far apart. Hopefully, we will get organized before we see it�s too late.