Mennonite
Central
Committee

Globalization Problematique

This piece was prepared as general orientation for seminar participants.

Introduction

"Globalization," now a widely acknowledged phenomenon, is upon us. It is manifest in myriad ways. Much of the available literature on the subject is based on the assumption that the process of globalization is a phenomenon originating in the West, slowly but surely spreading its tentacles around the world. For these purposes it has long been considered that Japan, withits huge industrial complex, functions as part of the "westernizing" or globalization process. With the spectacular rise of China as a world-scale producer of consumer goods and with India emerging as a prodigious provider of high-tech software, it becomes increasingly clear that "westernization" can no longer be equated, a priori, with globalization.

Another widely held assumption regarding globalization is that it is "being done to" or imposed upon the multitudinous peripheries of the world by some single-minded, latently conspiratorial, centralized plot designed to dominate and control, herding mindless victims/consumers from around the world into a single market. Any person living in today's world with access to radio, newspapers, the Internet and e-mail facilities could be forgiven for understanding globalization in conspiratorial terms.

The reality of the world is much more complex than the foregoing speculations might suggest. Indeed, the reality is at once more benevolent and more malevolent; it is both more and less controlled, moving in a variety of directions at once. Perhaps the most startling observation to be made about the current globalization process is that a very significant portion of the nearly 6 billion people in the world live at the periphery of anything recognizable as modern, Western or in terms of this seminar, "global." They live as they "always" have, in their own world and largely on their own terms.

One of the great virtues/vices of generally accepted assumptions regarding "globalization" is that the exceptions prove the rule. Moreover the exceptions provide huge spaces within which alternative or counter views and strategies can be identified and discussed. The problematique being considered in this seminar is premised on the notion that what happens in the periphery is also part of the global matrix. And if the reality of the periphery is rendered articulate, it too must be given attention and accorded due space. In a true global community, it is finally the "sum of [all] the parts" which constitutes the whole. It can be argued that the globalization "whole" which is encountered in the popular press and even in much of the academic literature is fact not at all "whole"; instead it is a global pattern in which a minority of the parts dominate the whole; a phenomenon in which the "few" dominate the "many".

Purpose of This Seminar

In this seminar participants are invited to reflect on:

• the common and diverse perceptions of globalization;
• alternative or preferred definitions of globalization;
• the complexities and requirements of a globalization process and reality in which the "whole" would in fact be constituted by the "sum of the parts";
• the prospect of a globalization process in which each constituent part of the whole exercises the responsibility and ability to "speak for itself"; conversely, a globalization process in which the "parts" genuinely respect, listen to and account for the other parts;
• the religious, metaphysical, value or faith base necessary to an equitable qlobalization process, i.e., the foundations of a "global ethic"; and
• the regulatory regimes required to a more diverse, "wholist" globalization.

Seminar Strategy

This seminar is patterned (rather arbitrarily) after the design of a three-legged African stool, the respective legs of which are the following:

• the African religio-cultural heritage as embodied in the All Africa Conference of Churches;
• the African "round robin" saving systems (and related ethics) as the foundation for both micro and macro, formal and informal economics; and
• sand dams: a highly integrated deployment of micro development technology, effecting macro impact and drawing on a composite of modern, traditional, ecological, religio-cultural and political instrumentalities toward a fundamental modernizing process.

The Problematique of a Globalizing Africa

Rendering the arbitrarily-chosen African stool GLOBAL:

• How does Africa's religio-cultural heritage contribute to or achieve recognition as a component integral to the global heritage?
• Which processes are necessary to the recognition and functioning of the African "round robin" savings ethic/system/structure at a "global" level?
• Which elements are critical to the identification of foundational technologies and processes for development implementation (as in the case of the sand dams) in a manner which imbues them with "global" relevance?

 

Co-Sponsors: MCC & FECCLAHA Nairobi, March 2003