ISSUES
Freedom without choice
SHELLEY WALIA
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Inequity in the Global Village is a call for active opposition to the overwhelming and negative force that globalisation begets.
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Inequity in the Global Village, Jan Knippers Black, Kumarian Press, p.275, $24.95.
WHAT one sees around the world and what goes on in the mainstream media as well as in the academia is at odds with each other. The post Cold War scenario, as Jan Black argues in her book Inequity in the Global Village, is replete with a great deal of "posturing and preening, of claiming of credit and bounty as well as the higher moral and theoretical ground".
But in reality, we only see a "multifaceted imbalance". It is an "all-embracing decade of transition, of kaleidoscopic change for good and for ill, leaving no part of the world, no species and no culture, untouched". This has led to so-called "healthy economics" in a global village, but one that is "gated and guarded", for members only. The problem, therefore, is that of cultural difference or the onslaught of nature. The problem confronting us is "the capitalist system run amuck, one that has escaped popular control and has come to dominate the public arena, a system of speed — of sound mobility, of money and immobilised political leadership. The gap will most likely continue to grow exponentially until it is confronted by a globally coordinated policy u-turn or a global financial system meltdown".
Threat of civil war
The problems that have thus risen include the steep rise in refugee population, a more volatile nationalism and the obvious chasm between the rich and the poor so visible in China or India. If nothing is done, for instance, in diverting funds and technology to the rural East in China, the backwardness of the masses will result in a civil strife that would have a terrible effect on the newly acquired prosperity in China.
Jan Knippers Black's book is a call for active opposition to the overwhelming and negative force that globalisation begets. On the face of it, globalisation does stand for freedom, but in reality there are absolutely no equal opportunities for people and nations, as is clear in the case of Dubai being disallowed from taking over the management of the ports in the United States. The economies around the world seem to be prospering, but strategic silence is observed on the reality of the condition of the poor. Jan Black has incisively analysed the consequences of human and ecological disasters and cautions us of the dangers of survival if nothing is done to counter the injustices that we face. Global apartheid is rampant in a world where the developing countries always lose out to nations more powerful and wealthy.
This dismal picture is related to the serious problem of the infringement of human rights, which range from the right to eat to homelessness, from women's issues to environmentalism, from torture and imprisonment to execution and "disappearance". Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a number of other groups have taken upon themselves to bring attention to such vital issues which need immediate remedies. The call of the hour summons the need for a culture of one's own and the right to citizenship "without which no rights are enforceable, and to political participation, without which no claim is sustainable". In an age of outsourcing and depletion of subsistence farming and fishing, the means of earning have virtually disappeared. Human Rights agencies have to stand up for a community of interests so that their activism filters down to the public which must learn to not concede any more space to globalism or the exploitation of "Third World" economies.
Jan Black touches briefly on the problem of dowry deaths and female infanticide in India, and emphasises the Indian government's initiation of constitutional changes to ensure that one third of India's local council seats are reserved for women. She takes a first hand look at the economic descent of Cuba, but sees how the country has held together through progressive programmes of introducing universal literacy and cost free education, which has resulted in a high percentage of professionals. The next door military threat from the U.S. undoubtedly evoked solidarity in the nation, but the free market economy of the West has set off currents of alienation and class division, so harmful to the idea of communism.
Politics of reconciliation
The answer to Cuba's political and economic dilemma lies in the lifting of trade embargo by the U.S., of having an open diplomatic relationship with Cuba and allowing the Cuban-American population to initiate new moves to break down any differences between the two nations. But national sovereignty is dear to the Cubans and they would do anything to not let go. On the other hand the embracing of global economic system is the need of the hour, but at what cost? Havana and Washington have to seriously try to overcome the stalemate and allow economic, cultural and political interaction to fructify into a new politics of reconciliation.
An incisive analysis of other pressing issues in the Baltics, in Indo-China and in Central Asia throws light on the ways in which exploitation and resistance has built up over the years, especially in the proliferation of the capitalist system which has not only been unable to solve the unemployment problem, but has increased inequality between the rich and the poor. Jan Black has travelled around the world to present such a dismal picture of our world. But she is not a pessimist. She does have faith in the many NGOs, the Women's movement, the Human Rights agencies, which are waging a war on neo-liberal hegemonies.
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