B-Cognizance
IIITA e-Magazine
October - December 2006 Vol 2 Issue 11
Globalization is a war against people, especially the poor. Anti-globalization movements and movements for the defense of people's rights to livelihoods and basic needs are the democratic and peaceful responses to the terrorism of globalization. These are movements based on hope: they strive to create a better world. They are movements focusing on economic injustice and seeking to correct it through democracy.
However, the economic exclusion and insecurity intrinsic to globalization also create a climate of fear and hopelessness, especially among those who are unable to grasp the roots of their insecurity. The economy of globalization creates a culture of despair and fear among the poor. It integrates markets globally, but excludes ordinary people from the economy and from democratic decision-making. Economic exclusion of those who do not comply with the rules of capitalism creates political, social and cultural exclusion and insecurity. Exclusion and insecurity provide fertile ground for breeding extremism, terrorism and fundamentalism. Democracy emptied of economic freedom and ecological freedom becomes potent ground for anger and violence, leading to attacks on the structures of global power.
IT IS HELPFUL to pause and reflect on the context which creates violence, and on the causes which give birth to terrorism, because that can help us find ways to build cultures of nonviolence. Violence and nonviolence are not essential characteristics or traits of any particular groups of people or cultures. They are potentials, which emerge according to the context.
Why is violence engulfing the world so rapidly? Why has terrorism become the dominant feature of humankind? Could the violence characterizing human societies be linked with violent structures and institutions we have created to reduce nature to resources, society to markets and humans to consumers? We need to ponder these questions if we wish to understand the roots of terrorism.
by Nidhi Kumari, MBA IIITA.
X'Pressions
GLOBSALISATION AS ECONOMIC TERRORISM
Globalization is a war against people, especially the poor. Anti-globalization movements and movements for the defense of people's rights to livelihoods and basic needs are the democratic and peaceful responses to the terrorism of globalization. These are movements based on hope: they strive to create a better world. They are movements focusing on economic injustice and seeking to correct it through democracy.
However, the economic exclusion and insecurity intrinsic to globalization also create a climate of fear and hopelessness, especially among those who are unable to grasp the roots of their insecurity. The economy of globalization creates a culture of despair and fear among the poor. It integrates markets globally, but excludes ordinary people from the economy and from democratic decision-making. Economic exclusion of those who do not comply with the rules of capitalism creates political, social and cultural exclusion and insecurity. Exclusion and insecurity provide fertile ground for breeding extremism, terrorism and fundamentalism. Democracy emptied of economic freedom and ecological freedom becomes potent ground for anger and violence, leading to attacks on the structures of global power.
IT IS HELPFUL to pause and reflect on the context which creates violence, and on the causes which give birth to terrorism, because that can help us find ways to build cultures of nonviolence. Violence and nonviolence are not essential characteristics or traits of any particular groups of people or cultures. They are potentials, which emerge according to the context.
Why is violence engulfing the world so rapidly? Why has terrorism become the dominant feature of humankind? Could the violence characterizing human societies be linked with violent structures and institutions we have created to reduce nature to resources, society to markets and humans to consumers? We need to ponder these questions if we wish to understand the roots of terrorism.
by Nidhi Kumari, MBA IIITA.