We
all know about the history of how globalisation begun when Marco Polo travelled
around Asia or when Christopher Coloumbus 'accidentally' settled in America,
but what is the meaning of their journey to travel across the globe? My
understanding is that they wanted to know about the different cultures,
societies, countries and even new food?!
As
I was reading through the related articles and YouTube videos of the history of
globalisation, there are some fascinating history pieces that I believe would
have been ‘accidental’ or ‘purposely’ being triggered to develop what we have
now in the modern world like Buddhism, spices, television and animals. The
formation and interaction between the global world and local developments have
been a central driving force to develop this connecting world. The factors that
affect most of this globalisation concept started with common ideas or
exchanges of interest between the Europeans, Middle Easterners, Asians,
Americans and even the Africans. The revolutions such as the US and French
revolutions have changed the way societies think or how technologies have
changed especially in the Industrial Revolution that caused this huge wave of
expanding trade of technologies. I could not imagine how the network of trade
in the movement of people, animals, goods, money and even micro-organisms that
could populate to develop what I have seen or heard today.
Imagine
what life would be like if globalisation or trade did not exist. As for me, I
would be in China working under low labour conditions in a factory or settling
in luxury with a roof above my head if I was fortunate to grow up in a higher
class family. If globalisation did not exist, how can we survive? Surely, within
hundreds of years human being will adapt to their surrounding environment but
what if a plague casts over the country and no one would have survived without
the development of anti-biotics or even developed health care systems and
medical professionals.
We
see that globalisation has benefited many countries and are still bringing new developed
countries like Malaysia. The expansion of commercial productions and
commodities, technologies and finances has formed this world as of today.
However
I thought to myself, what is globalisation? What makes up globalisation? Is it
just one thing or several events that lead one to another that makes a global
world? What are the negatives and the positives of globalisation?
As
I was further reading into the related articles on the Moodle board, I found
this site <http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dludden/global1.htm> that gave me an
interesting definition.
'Globalisation is a
historical process that began the first movement of people out of Africa into
other parts of the world’.
I
thought to myself, first movement of people out of Africa? Was slave trade one
of the developments that lead to globalisation of people? As I began to refresh
my memory of Russell Peter’s stand-up comedy about how the British went over to
Africa for slave labour, it all began to make sense. Movement of people to
different parts of the world like the Colonial Australian history, refugees or
when immigrants come over to develop their communities, their cultures and
traditions are still brought with them. And that is where a global world of
different nationalities come together bringing their knowledge, experiences,
food, cultural upbringing and beliefs are the benefits of globalisation.
Slave
labour is still in existence but has been converted to hard labour, especially
in countries where they have very relaxed and unrestricted labour laws and low
pay wages.
I was watching a documentary
on ABC News about this Bangladesh fashion company who mistreats their
manufacturing labours. Questions raised in my mind about what working
conditions these people had to go through and has globalisation really provide
those benefits that I have mentioned before. Such multinational corporations
that misuses their power in international trade really depicts a world of
cruelty, just like the Europeans with their misuse of power by taking in
African labour. So there is a parallel in our modern world to the history of
our world. And what globalisation does may be a disadvantage to our world such
as like the World Wars and a world of disagreement like the 9/11 tragedy.
Globalisation
is more of capitalism now. Multi-national corporations use this concept to
outsource to lower costs of resources and labour. That is why we see there are
many social issues about treatment of human beings – the negatives of
globalisation. For example, I remember watching the 1999 Seattle civil
disruption on an old 60 minutes re-run on YouTube depicting on the angry
anarchists who were against capitalism causing anger and damage to civilian
property. Another incident that was parallel to this, was a news footage of an
Islamic mob protesting against the US Stock Exchange due to the 9/11 incident.
These events in my opinion are related because of the anti-capitalism concept.
The global world is controlled by capitalists – by multi-national corporations
like McDonalds, Star Bucks and Nike.
The development of globalisation- the
exchange of wealth, labour, resources, ideas and currency due to trade has
negatively impacted on society and developing countries.
However,
if we stop multi-national corporations from trading, most resources will be
made in the origin of the corporations, increasing prices which decreases our
income levels. We then cannot afford these designer clothes or luxury items,
decreasing the flow of our economy. That will then slow down the cycle of
currency – Government will cut welfare which then triggers poverty levels to
rise for those who cannot afford to have a roof over their heads. Is
globalisation really a bad thing if we stopped exchanging goods and resources?
Or has globalisation helped us develop our knowledge through the internet and
media, our education, our wealth for being able to work and travel overseas or
being able to connect to families and friends using Skype, Facebook and
telephone calls?
Even
though globalisation has a handful of negative outcomes , but there are all
balanced by the positive aspects of being globally aware of such events like
the 9/11 or the tsunami in Japan back in 2011 and we as global citizens are
actively helping out to those who are in need.
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