In-class essay: Globalisation disconnects. Discuss.

May 28, 2014

In the past few decades, globalisation, as we know it, has brought the worldinto closer contact with each other. As multinational companies such as Mc-Donalds and Coca-Cola extend their reach to almost every continent, are wejustified in saying that globalization disconnects people? I feel a more nuancedview is called for. Instead of disconnecting one and all, globalization fostersconnections, both economic and social, between nations, economics and compa-nies and between individuals. Yet this may come at the price of socio-culturalconnections and create a disconnect between the rich and the poor.

Globalisation and its ensuing technologies, such as the Internet, has en-abled people from diverse societies and cultures to interact, collaborate andsocialize. One example of such an event is the Olympic Games, in which hun-dreds of nations share the common platform of sport to compete and, in sodoing, interact, by housing the international athletes in a common Olympicvillage. Non-athletes, too, can participate in the Games by watching live broad-casts. All this would be impossible had there not been accessible air travel anddistance-reducing technologies such as satellite transmissions which enable liveTV broadcasts from one country to another. Evidently, interpersonal connec-tions have been greatly enhanced and enabled by globalization.

Globalisation also has the effect of making people who are geographicallyseparated become interdependent economically. Multinational companies andcountries whose economies rely mainly on exports or international aid are atestament to this. To keep costs down, multinational companies often outsourcethe production of their products, as we see with Apple and its factories inChina. Such outsourcing is a phenomenon born of globalization, as the transportand communications networks which brought people in geographically distantlocations in close contact are the same which allow the design of the latest Applegadget from California to be made reality in a factory in China. Several countriesalso have made economic connections with other, richer countries thanks toglobalisation. For example, lately, Burkina Faso has risen from hardly exportingany of its agricultural produce to being one of the most significant producersof green beans, which are consumed not in Africa, but transported to kitchens

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in the US and UK. Likewise, under President Kagames leadership, Rwandaseconomy grew tremendously- because of investment from foreign businesses andinternational aid. In this way, globalization connects economies of differentcountries in complex buyer-seller relationships across the world.

Globalisation, and most particularly the internet, also has connected peopleacross vast distances, allowing the sharing of knowledge across countries. Theinternet has enabled conferences and conventions to be conducted without re-quiring participants to be physically present in the same location. An exampleof such an event is the Google Science Fair, where judging is based on a videoand report submitted online. Globalisation thus allows connections betweenideas regardless of where the originators of these ideas are.

However, globalization is not a panacea, nor a miracle that facilitates allkinds of connections, as there remain situations in which globalization is a cat-alyst for conflict.

Globalisation fosters disconnects between a countrys culture and its people.While the disconnect may be due to practical reasons that is, that what is morepopular globally is easier to sell and therefore more profitable arguably, thealienation of a people from their culture could only have come about becauseof globalisation. Even in countries known to be proud of their culture, suchas Bhutan, there are worries that these countries youth are not sufficientlyconnected with their own culture, as evidenced by the rowing popularity ofAmerican rap and Western culture. Cultures may in danger of being eclipsedby the America- or Euro-centric popular culture and media, which introduced tocountries worldwide the globalizing influences of the media. Hence, globalizationcan cause rifts between ones own culture and the dominant, pervasive mediasaturated Western cultures, as what is new and foreign can seem much moretempting than what was native to the land.

Globalisation also enables the creation of ideologies that disconnect groupsfrom mainstream views. The internet has been shown to be a great tool forthe radicalization of would-be terrorists. Those more susceptible to radicalideas of jihad, are now more easily brainwashed to such radical sermons online.Similarly, subcultures such as those promoting Neo-Nazi, suicide, anorexia orthe use of violence are able to do so across the world by the use of new media.These promote extremist and marginalized communities that are disconnectedfrom mainstream society.

Globalisation also may foster disconnects between the rich and the poor.The technologies that reduce geographical distance in human interactions areusually only accessible to those who are richer, as smartphones, an internetconnection and the like come at a price- a price not all can pay. Economic

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globalization in the form of overseas investments in property and so on alsorequire relatively high capital and is once again much more attainable for therich. People who can afford these overseas investments then stand to reap theresultant benefits. Conversely, poorer individuals are less ale to take advantageof such investments due to their limited income- and so they remain poorer,exacerbating the rich-poor divide. Globalisation holds the potential to conductbusiness and interact with people from around the world, bringing with it profitand richer social lives, but these require capital, which not all have. As we canse, globalization can connect people across boundaries, yet deepen rifts betweenothers, even if they live in the same country.

Coca-Cola showed us with its Friendship Vending Machines how globalisa-tion, with its transport networks and communications technologies, could beused to help people create interpersonal connections with each other. In oneevent, identical Friendship Vending Machines were placed in malls in India andPakistan, each fitted with a webcam and a display screen so that both Indiansand Pakistanis could see each other at the vending. And wave and toast eachother a bottle of Coca-Cola, intergovernmental disputes and rivalries notwith-standing. Yes, globalization has the power to connect economies and peopleliving in different parts of the world, but it can strain other kinds of connec-tions, such as those between the rich and the poor, or between a countrys peopleand its youth- and its own native culture.

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