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World Affairs
Letter From the Editor in Chief
J C Kapur
Genesis of Globalisation
The connecting links between peoples and nations are millennia-old and not a new phenomenon. These were expressions of the human, physical and cosmic connectivity which were the carried to near and distant lands through trade routs over sea and land; also through sages and seers, monks and nuns – singing hymns to a power greater than human. Such linkages did not disrupt the physical, social and spiritual environment but often enriched it with new ideas, cultures, religions and products of utility and beauty. It was largely a creative process, till conquests and colonialism transformed this into acts of oppression and exploitation. The diverse pluralism of life styles and its purpose, ethical and moral values, cultures and religions, were all made to subserve the transference of wealth to enrich the coffers of the colonial powers and deprive its victims.
In the metaphysics of human order, science, technologies and the marketplace, by their very nature, cannot provide a just, sustainable and lasting value structure. In science, the boundaries are cosmic while scientists are being guided and controlled by the compulsions of profit and the marketplace. And these restructured profit values are becoming the foundation of the globalisation parameters and as the basis of interaction between states. The images of aggregating wealth in a few hands in the midst of growing unemployment and mass deprivation and poverty can no longer be blurred by the unending media and statistical offensive let loose by their elitist intellectuals: justifiers of power and upholders of the paradigm. Casino-style financial operations, technological possessiveness and threats of weapons of mass destruction apart, every other instrument of engineered cultural confrontation, religious and ethnic tensions are being employed to stabilise an inherently unstable globalisation system. And nations with different cultures, resource patterns, social needs and priorities are being pressured into an economic system and trade regime designed for a trickle up mode, on the assumption that nobody can survive outside the system.
As the greed of the marketplace and globalisation become explosively irreconcilable, we have sought the cooperation of accomplished economic thinkers to explore and delineate the growing politico-economic compulsions and new frameworks for development. The authors in this issue of World Affairs have expressed a broad and diverse range of opinions on the rapidly shifting sands of the world economy, in the section on the Politics of Economics.
Another area of growing instability relates to human rights. The most promoted definition of human rights has its origin in societies which over the years have evolved into stages of economic development and welfare, where economic and political rights have attained some level of synergy. To enforce such packaged human rights in diverse societies without even satisfying the minimum basic needs of the mass of their people and irrationality of their differential linkages with affluent societies, are catalysing unlimited tension and violence. And its consequences are visible in most parts of the world as erosion of human synergy and ecology.
Myanmar with all its political conflicts is a country in respite. Its quality of life is largely a process of societal evolution and not foisted. Its cultural unity has not been cast asunder and it has so far survived external political and cultural interventions. Myanmar has the wherewithal for development but its time and movement is measurable on a different scale. We have learnt much about Myanmar only from international sources. Therefore, to get a feel of the country and another viewpoint, we interviewed its Foreign Minister, His Excellency Mr U Win Aung. His responses to the issues raised by us are carried in this issue of the journal.
We also have a paper by Ramin Jahanbegloo on the pressures for liberalisation and the de-fundamentalisation of Iran. Such an evolution from within the society, if allowed to grow, should have much greater stability and survival value than external pressures for change. Such pressures have had unintended consequences in the past.
There are many implied messages in the large number of solicited and unsolicited contributions received by this journal. It is becoming increasingly clear that a democracy dominated by narrow interests or passions, will subvert any paradigm and will dethrone the marketplace ruled by one player. This self-negating process is creating compulsions for the formation of protective alliances to counter the growing adventurism of the unipolar power.
There is a need for collective reflection on a global policy bringing together the United States, the European Union, Russia, India, China, Japan and of course, the Islamic states (who must innovate and determine their role beyond Jehad). It will need real respect for pluralism and an understanding of cultures more advanced and complex than the stand-alone monolithic modernity being propagated.
The globalised world order goes beyond interstate relations. We need to define the conditions and values that would make the order of the future. It must begin to represent diverse multipolar interests. The developing tensions are not just due to disparities in wealth and power but also due to techniques being adopted in their acquisition, where every step forward becomes a threat to others.
New Delhi, J C Kapur
June 2001