Globalization a homogenization<\/p>\n
By Hilman Adil<\/p>\n
This is the first of two articles dealing with the issue of
\nglobalization.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The debate about globalization as a world
\nprocess, and its consequences, has been going on now for some
\ntime.<\/p>\n
Increasingly over the last few years the challenge of
\nglobalization has been much discussed in academic, political,
\nbusiness and wider public circles, referring to the possible
\ndemise of the nation-state.<\/p>\n
Their key focus is on two fronts: (a) cultural fragmentation
\nand things related to it, and (b) economic fragmentation, both on
\na global scale.<\/p>\n
Global cultural fragmentation consists of the weakening of
\nformer national identities -- especially the dissolution of a
\nmembership known as citizenship, in the abstract meaning of
\nmembership in a territorially defined and stage-governed society,
\nand its replacement by an identity based on primordial loyalties,
\nethnicity, race, local community, language and other culturally
\nconcrete forms.<\/p>\n
The tendency to culturally fragment is in this view, not part
\nof a process of development in the emergence of a post-industrial
\norder -- an information society on a global scale.<\/p>\n
Rather it is a question of economic fragmentation, an
\naccompanying increase in competition and a tendency for new
\ncenters of accumulation to concentrate both economic and
\npolitical power in their own hands, which is the beginning of a
\nmajor shift in hegemony in the world system.<\/p>\n
This process of fragmentation has taken the form of movements
\nin cultural autonomy, nationalism, ethnicity and a general trend
\ntoward all forms of local autonomy.<\/p>\n
The highest level of segmentation beneath the state are among
\nnationalist-ethnic, ethnic and cultural autonomy movements.
\nNationalist movements, or rather subnationalist, and politics
\nhave become increasingly troublesome in the center of the system.<\/p>\n
The belief in a pan-European society has for the most part
\nfaded away in the present situation, in the wake of both national
\nconflicts of interest and internal movements of Basques, Scots,
\nBretons, the Flemish and others, referred to by a prominent
\nscholar in the following terms: \"The recent reemergence and
\nintensification of subnational ethnic conflict in Western Europe
\nand North America have come as a surprise to most scholarly
\nobservers.\" (A. Lijphart, Political Theories and its explanation
\nof ethnic conflict in the Western world: falsified predictions
\nand plausible post dictions, in Essman, M. (ed), Ethnic Conflict
\nin the Western World, Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1977).<\/p>\n
The focus on the economic front is directed toward economic
\npolicymakers who are constrained by global financial markets,
\ninternational investors, policy decisions by the most powerful
\nstates, and more recently measures by powerful currency
\nspeculators.<\/p>\n
What is needed is to map some of the shifting configurations
\nof this problem, of the local and the global, particularly in
\nrelation to the nation-state.<\/p>\n
From the outset, we should distinguish two types of
\nglobalization: (a) when separated elements (markets, cultures)
\nmake contact for the first time, without regulatory measures,
\ncertain phenomena will result, i.e. collapse of markets or the
\nassimilation of one culture by another, and (b) when forces on a
\nglobal scale favor uniformity, i.e. human societies or nation-
\nstates with different evolutionary and historical backgrounds.<\/p>\n
In this article, we will concentrate on the second type of
\nglobalization.<\/p>\n
The impact of globalization on the nation-state has been
\nmarked by pressure from seven key phenomena: (a) the growing
\ntrend toward free trade in markets, (b) computerization and
\nautomation in world industries, (c) the collapse of the Soviet
\nUnion, which has transformed the geopolitical situation by ending
\nthe Cold War, (d) new information and communications highways,
\n(e) the globalization of environmental problems as a result of
\nthe greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion, (f) the increase
\nin world population, and lastly, (g) massive migration of human
\npopulations from countrysides to cities, from one country to
\nanother, or from one continent to other parts of the world.<\/p>\n
The social and economic sciences have also given their own
\nversion of the impact of globalization. For example, economists
\nattribute these to world-wide financial and economic stability or
\nthe extraordinary growth rate of some Southeast Asian countries
\nbefore the recent currency crisis.<\/p>\n
Sociologists are struck by the aspirations for a single life-
\nstyle and by the monotonous resemblance of suburbs around the
\nworld, as well as the phenomena of exclusion, violence, and
\nmarginalization of entire populations, very often within one
\ncountry.<\/p>\n
Communicators tell us of new information channels that leap
\nacross national boundaries, and of their possible repercussions
\non the interaction of societies and individuals. Political
\nscientists regard globalization as responsible for frequent
\nregional wars and massive migrations, as well as for the nuclear
\nproliferation threat and a new vision of geopolitical security.<\/p>\n
The concept of culture poses us with a paradox. On one hand,
\nculture is by definition particularistic. In the anthropological
\nsense, culture means the set of values or practices of a
\nparticular group over those of another group at the same level of
\ndiscourse, i.e. French vs. Italian culture, proletarian vs.
\nbourgeois culture, etc.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, there can be no justification of cultural
\nvalues or practices other than by reference to some universal
\ncriteria. To argue the contrary would put people in isolation and
\nforce them either in cultural relativism or in a state of
\nxenophobia since no other group's values or practices could be
\ngood or could be tolerated.<\/p>\n
The premise of this article is that the global circulation of
\nimages, ideologies, people and resources poses a complex
\nchallenge to the cultural presumptions underlying the modern
\ninternational system.<\/p>\n
Notions of ethnic identity and cultural specificity are
\ninvoked to legitimize principles of state sovereignty and
\nprotectionism. But at the same time, the affiliations and
\nidentifications of increasing sections of society no longer
\ncorrespond to existing territorial maps.<\/p>\n
The first question which comes to mind is, can there
\nconceivably be such a thing as a world culture. Some have argued,
\nbased on historical facts, that some people at least have put
\nforward ideas which have asserted to be universal values.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, for some 200 years now, and even more intensively
\nfor the last 50 years, many national governments as well as world
\ninstitutions have asserted the validity and even the
\nenforceability of such values.<\/p>\n
Other writers have argued that the question posed before
\ncontains a historical paradox. The so-called nation-state, our
\nprimary cultural container, is of course a relatively recent
\ncreation. A world consisting of nation-states partially came into
\nexistence in the sixteenth century.<\/p>\n
Such a world became a matter of widespread consciousness only
\nin the nineteenth century. It became an inescapable universal
\nphenomenon only after 1945. Side by side with the emergence of
\nsuch nation-states, each with frontiers, each with its own
\ntraditions, the world has been moving toward a world
\nconsciousness which we call humanity.<\/p>\n
And to top off this dual track, i.e. the historical creation
\nof the nation-state side by side with the historical creation of
\nuniversal humanity, we find a curious anomaly.<\/p>\n
Over time, nation-states have come to resemble each other more
\nin their cultural or political forms, each having a legislature,
\na constitution, a bureaucracy, trade unions or a national
\ncurrency.<\/p>\n
Even in the more particularistic art forms, each nation-state
\nhas its songs, dances, plays, museums and paintings. Curiously
\nenough, the more intense the nationalist fervor, the more
\nidentical seem the expressions of this nationalism.<\/p>\n
Indeed, one of the major nationalist demands has frequently
\nbeen to obtain that from which more privileged countries already
\npossess. This is in part from cultural diffusion, made possible
\nby the advances in transportation and communications.<\/p>\n
This phenomenon is usually explained in two ways: (a) the
\nthesis of linear tendency toward one world, and (b) the stage
\ntheory of human development.<\/p>\n
The thesis of linear tendency or secular tendency argues that
\nthe world originally contained a large number of distinct groups.
\nOver time, as the scope of activity expands, with the aid of
\nscience and technology, groups will merge and become one world,
\nso we will have one political world, one economic world and one
\ncultural world.<\/p>\n
The theory of human development maintains that the historic
\ndifferences of all groups have always been superficial. In
\ncertain key structural ways, all groups have always been the
\nsame. Thus, all societies go through parallel stages but will end
\nup with a single human society in the end and therefore with a
\nworld culture.<\/p>\n
These two classic explanations for the trend toward a global
\nculture have been criticized for the following reason. Defining
\nculture is a question of defining boundaries that are essentially
\npolitical.<\/p>\n
The boundaries must be arbitrary in the sense that the drawing
\nup of them is seldom easy to explain.<\/p>\n
We could argue that no matter how a culture is defined, not
\nall members of the designated group hold its presumed values or
\nshare its presumed practices.<\/p>\n
It is, therefore, possible to find a variety of cultures in
\none region alone. What might be called the fluidity of culture
\nhas always been a social reality, and can only have become
\nintensified with the increasing density of human settlement.<\/p>\n
That is why we could say that every individual is the
\nmeeting point of a very large number of cultural traits. It means
\nthat each individual is in fact a unique composite of cultural
\ncharacteristics. To use a metaphor of painting, the resulting
\ncollective cultural landscape is a very subtle blending of an
\nincredibly large number of colors.<\/p>\n
In this sense, the history of the world has been against the
\ntrend of cultural homogenization. It has rather been a trend
\ntoward cultural differentiation.<\/p>\n
But we also know that this centrifugal process has not slid
\ntoward cultural anarchy. There are forces restraining the
\ncentrifugal tendencies. In our modern world-system, the single
\nmost powerful force has been the nation-state.<\/p>\n
From this analysis we can surmise that although the present
\ninternational system is less commanding, it is still influential.
\nStates are changing but they are not disappearing. Some
\ncommunities are breaking up and others are consolidating.<\/p>\n
Governments are weaker, but they still can throw their weight
\naround. \"Home\" is no longer so much a place as it is a sense of
\nconnectedness, but it remains the center of daily life.<\/p>\n
Boundaries can still keep out intruders, but they are also
\nmore porous. Landscapes are giving way to ethnoscapes,
\nmediascapes, ideoscapes, technoscapes, and finanscapes.<\/p>\n
The writer is director at the Center for Social and Cultural
\nStudies at the National Institute of Sciences.<\/p>",
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