Alternative globalisation
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed argues that globalisation need not in all circumstances go against democracy
The pros and cons of globalisation can be endlessly debated, but one thing is certain: there is no going back to the pre- globalisation era. Contrary to what its opponents claim, globalisation is a multi- faceted process that cannot be reversed.
Take, for example, the Information Revolution, which has cancelled distance in both time and space. It is now possible for all the inhabitants of our planet to be informed of any event whenever it happens, wherever it happens. They are no longer divided into completely separate communities, even if political borders between states still exist and states still enjoy sovereign prerogatives protected by international treaties, laws and constitutions.
The unhampered flow of and access to information is an undeniably positive feature of globalisation that not even its staunchest opponents can take issue with. Rather than reject globalisation altogether, therefore, we should reject only its negative features while maintaining and further developing the positive ones. The most negative feature of globalisation as it has unfolded so far is the growing dichotomy it is engendering between a minority that has acquired greater wealth, power and influence and an overwhelming majority that is sinking into greater poverty, frustration and despair. The gap between rich and poor in today's world is such that 20 per cent of the planet's inhabitants own more than 80 per cent of its wealth.
The alternative globalisation we must work to put in place is one that will operate in favour of the whole of humankind and not just of a privileged few. It should aim at overcoming the present dichotomy which splits humanity into haves and have-nots, as well as at reducing the polarisation that now marks world order and replacing it with greater equity, justice and equal opportunities for all human beings.
The first signs of a nascent counter- globalisation movement are manifesting themselves in a variety of ways. Already we have seen the anti-Davos gatherings in Switzerland, the massive anti-globalisation demonstrations which took place in Porto Allegre for two consecutive years and are scheduled to take place in Mumbai, India, next week, the millions-strong demonstrations that broke out all over the world against the war in Iraq and the strong protest movement against the World Trade Organisation, symbol of a global economy that is allegedly based on "free" markets.
Reforming globalisation can proceed in one of two directions: either towards consolidating hegemonic patterns through autocratic, dictatorial regimes that allow the powerful to become still more powerful and make the weak even weaker; or towards greater democracy. The second scenario is less likely, because it is questionable whether humankind has reached the required degree of maturity and wisdom to make it prevail.
The last president of the USSR, Mikhael Gorbachev, initiated a daring political experiment which he called perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (transparency) aimed at "deconstructing" the Soviet Union and eliminating what he perceived as basic structural defects, particularly the lack of democracy. But the experiment failed and ended up with a coup engineered by leading members of the Communist Party. His rival Boris Yeltsin succeeded in foiling the coup, an act which enabled him to wrest power from Gorbachev, proclaim the dissolution of the Communist Party, the downfall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Socialist Camp and, ultimately, the disappearance of the bipolar world order.
With the breakdown of global bipolarity, the arms race between the two superpowers lost its previous pertinence in determining the orientation of world politics. The United States emerged as the unchallenged superpower on the world stage, its military arsenal exceeding that of the sum total of the arsenals of all other states combined. This left other great powers such as France, Germany, Russia and China with no choice but to keep their opposition to US policies below a certain threshold. The only other choice was to do what Britain, Spain and Italy did, that is, to publicly endorse the American line (as these states did during the war on Iraq) and to express whatever reservations they had to the Americans in private. Washington has lost no time in capitalising on a global balance of power tilted sharply to its advantage, imposing its hegemony and dictating policies that serve its own narrow interests. This has created a global climate that is more favourable to scenario one, based on the consolidation of hegemonic patterns, than to scenario two, based on greater democracy.
Can the situation be reversed so that scenario two becomes more likely than scenario one, even in the long term? Though by no means impossible, such a development can only come about if certain conditions are met. Two factors in particular are crucial in this respect, namely, education and technology.
For democracy to flourish, illiteracy should be totally eradicated. Knowledge should be made available as a basis for the development of political awareness so that participation in public life becomes a common feature. In Egypt, for instance, illiteracy is so widespread that the dissemination of knowledge is not sufficient to have an effective impact on politics. Elections can easily be rigged to present a distorted picture of the electorate's will.
Just as education is vital for the diffusion of democratic values and practices in society, so too is technology. Attributing to a given society the feature of being "advanced" is tantamount to declaring that the society in question is "complex". An advanced society is a society which has reached a high degree of sophistication, knowledge and culture. It is a society whose members use computers and other technical achievements of our time as a matter of course.
When it comes to high-tech instruments, the difficulty lies in inventing them, not in how to use them. Using them is usually simple; sophistication lies in reaching that simplicity, in developing the means to duplicate these instruments indefinitely, to reach a point where quantity is not realised at the expense of quality, nor vice-versa.
Advanced technology can be used to monitor performance, automatically and without the intervention of humans, in a variety of fields, including elections, thus drastically reducing the possibility of fraud. With robots replacing human beings in performing an ever wider variety of tasks, illegal enterprises will become more and more difficult. In other words, as technology advances, institutions are consolidated and democracy is reinforced.
