Love it and Lead It!

“Globalization widens the gap between the rich and poor”, “Globalization destroys the environment”, Globalization takes advantage of developing countries and exploits their natural resources and their people”, “Globalization____________ (insert anything negative here)”. Time after time I have heard these hot-aired rants and decided that it was time to do my own research.

Globalization has this “Love it or Leave it” mentality, “either you are with us or against us”. In my opinion we need a more constructive way of looking at the current situation. Instead of trying to ‘sail against the wind’, one should concentrate on making sure the “ship” is headed in the right direction.

Swedish writer Johan Norberg (www.johannorberg.net), concerning poverty in Vietnam, stated “As a matter of fact, those working for an American company in low-income countries receive 8 times the average wage in that country. It is not out of generosity, it is because of globalisation.” Italian writer Gian Piero de Bellis and co. destroys anti-globalist theories and actions in an essay titled “Globalism/antiglobalism” from a collection of essays called “Polyarchy”. Within this essay the writers point out that the multinational firms (i.e. Nike) give employment to those in poverty where the only other means of income would be “prostitution, begging or stealing in the streets, while some have stayed hidden doing even more poorly paid jobs in even worse conditions”. This is just one sentence of a perfected dismantlement of the anti-globalisation “fad”.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5633239795464137680&q=globalization

In addition to my recent research are authors to books I have recently read, authors whose free will and novels display the results of globalization. Salman Rushdie, the infamous author of the ‘Satanic Verses’, is an artist of this “floating world” having been born in India, lived to Pakistan, studied in England and finally settled in New York, is a person who has utilized the free movement globalization has created. Rushdie is author to a short story titled “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers” a narrative found in Rushdie’s collection of short stories titled ‘East, West’. One can not help but symbolize the Ruby slippers as his life up for sale to the highest bidder in the wake of his Fatwa issuance. “The Auctioneers have publicized the event widely and are prepared for all comers” (87) leading one to reflect on Salman’s feelings during his time of hiding. “Political refugees are at the auction; conspirators, deposed monarchs, defeated factions, poets, bandits and chieftains.” Only in a globalized world can one man have this much of an affect on another as Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Mosavi Khomeini had on Rushdie. Salman sends a motivating message at the end saying “Thanks to the infinite bounty of the Auctioneers, any of us, cat, dog, man, woman, child, can be a blue-blood; can be – as we long to be; and as, cowering in our shelters, we fear we are not – somebody.” The parts ‘cowering in our shelter’ and to be ’somebody’ are motivating and a message to people that if we want to be something we must remove ourselves from what we are comfortable with and act.

Similar to Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee is an author of a book titled “Jasmine”, a self reflexive fictional book where the main character Jasmine takes on different aliases she adorns while living in the US. Jasmine being born in a poor village in India ends up marrying a New Yorker who takes her to live in California. Her travels take her to the tip of Florida, up the coast to New York then to Iowa and finally to California. Jasmine’s global adventures are contributed by what globalism is doing which is opening boarders and opportunities for those who want a better life. Many might believe that globalization is only about economics and money but what people have to remember is when economic situations improve innovation and critical thinking take root. The world’s enthusiasm to interact with people from all walks of life encourages artistic people from around the globe to become more open and expressive. The novel opens with a scene that is revisited at the end when Jasmine, as a child, encounters a fortune teller who “cups his ears-his satellite dish to the stars-and foretold my widowhood and exile.”(3) By nature globalism encourages free movement and Mukherjee, having harnessed the positive affects of globalism, is allowed to leave India and become a renowned author by publishing her works to a larger audience. Jasmine, like Mukherjee was born and raised in India, traveled to America and made a better life for herself. At the end of the novel Jasmine mocks the teller, while leaving for California, by saying “Watch me reposition the stars” (240) as she takes fate into her own hands and writes her own future.

Globalism is about more than money, corporations and standards of living, it is about freedoms, freedoms of expression, freedoms of ideas and movement. When barriers are removed and countries and their people are allowed to compete for customers world wide everyone wins. From the basket weaver in Brazil to the aspiring writer in Bangladesh if physical and bureaucratic boundaries are removed the world will see the number of families in poverty decrease.

I leave you with a passage from Gian Piero de Bellis:

Globalism is, for many people, the only way to escape political oppression, economic poverty, and cultural alienation.
The real issue is not globalization vs. anti-globalization but liberation vs. subjection.
For this reason, whenever and wherever a debate on globalization takes place, after listening carefully to the various positions and arguments put forward and having worked out in our mind all the possible implications, we should sincerely ask ourselves: where is freedom? Who is really advocating freedom? How can we better develop freedom?
According to the answers we should know where we stand.

So love it and LEAD it!



http://www.polyarchy.org/essays/english/globalism.html#antiglobalization