Topic: The New Partners of Globalisation

Afternoon Session, Oct. 12

Magda Vašáryová
We will continue with our discussion of The New Partners of Globalization (Actors or Subjects?) I will lead the discussion very traditionally. I will give the floor to the speakers and then the panellists so, please, if you want to be a part of the discussion, let us know after the panellists’ speeches. I would like to introduce this panel to something that is very close to my heart and I will speak Slovak, if you allow me. The Czech translators told me that they would be prepared to translate my short speech.
President Havel said yesterday that he thinks that everybody has to start with himself. So, at the beginning of this panel, which will discuss the status of those from Central and Eastern Europe who are planning to join the European Union, I will start by speaking on behalf of Slovakia. (We also have representatives from Poland and the Czech Republic.) Immediately after the Slovak elections, and maybe this information will be interesting for you, we had the feeling that we had launched a new beginning, but we were also struggling with a feeling of partial victory. I am convinced, and I have always been convinced, that sources of stability and the integrating force of responsibility cannot be imported into a country. Sources of our own strengths have to be sought in every single country, inside that country. In this respect, the election in the Slovak Republic two weeks ago marked a departure from what has often been called in the newspapers “the emotional attitude of Slovaks” to public matters. Now we are ready to assume responsibility. This endeavour to resume responsibility for our own fate is supported by the increasing activity of the civic society in Slovakia, which today is represented by non-governmental organisations in Slovakia, by organisations of the so-called third sector, and it is a great honour for me to be able to participate at this Forum as a representative of one such organisation – the Slovak Foreign Policy Association. I am very glad to see other Slovak colleagues present here today who stand at the heads of other significant non-governmental organisations in Slovakia.
The second very encouraging factor is the fact that these organisations managed to address 80 per cent of the young voters, first-time voters, who have decided not only about Slovakia, but especially about their own future. I think these elections will have an enormous influence in Slovakia and, I hope, will enable us to find new ways of co-operating with our neighbours. I hope that we will become active participants in European processes. Maybe we will be able to contribute to Europe and, with our experience of the past four years and our peripeteia, we can also show how problems can be solved in a peaceful manner. Slovakia is currently not a participant in direct talks on immediate accession to the European Union, but we will continue to resolve our problems in a democratic way, not in the hope of being rewarded or being praised at international forums, but mainly for our young generation, which has opted for co-operation with other countries, with European countries and believes that this is where its future lies. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I would like to introduce Mrs Hanna Suchocká. In post-communist Eastern Europe, she has been one of the most active politicians of the centre-right in Poland and she’s very close to the Catholic Church. She was appointed by the Pope to be a member of the Papal Academia of Social Sciences, so I hope that the speech will be very interesting for us.

Hanna Suchocka
Thank you so much. It is really a great honour for me to take part in the panel discussion and discuss globalisation. I would like to start with a very short comment, because – coming from the post-communist part of Central Europe – I think that we are rather struck by globalisation because we lived, for 50 years, in a closed world, and when the door was opened to the Western countries we thought that the door was opened towards Europe – we thought only of Europe – and suddenly we faced the problem of globalisation. Sometimes I think that, for us, the problem of globalisation is much more difficult than for others, for people who have lived in the open world for many years. For that reason, I think that my remarks, and my comments, could seem obvious to you; but for us they are completely new questions and dilemmas, and for that reason I would like to ask your opinions on some questions and problems we face in Poland. But I think that they are not only Polish, and not only Central European, problems, but, listening to the morning’s discussions, to a large extent they are also worldwide problems.
In any discussion of the problems of globalisation, I think it is important to start from the premise that the challenge before us is not to debate whether or not we want globalisation, but the ways in which we should respond to what is an inevitable process of historical development – because, in my opinion, globalisation is a fact and now we have to discuss how we should meet the challenge. I see the challenge of globalisation in three broad layers, all of which have important implications for political systems and governments for, in a very fundamental sense, the challenge of globalisation is not so much about political systems and governments as subjects or objects, but the future of political systems and patterns of governments as such.
The first is the way in which globalisation develops: it depends upon, and focuses attention on, the individual. The free flow of goods, services, capital, as well as people, in the united liberal market is something that allows for the exercise of much greater choice by individual consumers; and it also frees individuals from the necessity of maintaining life-long links with their local communities or families. Similarly, the development of technology allows almost untrammelled access to information and different cultures, again creating ever newer opportunities for the individual to pick and chose his world-view and, indeed, to compare his culture with those of others in the world around him. This immediately creates the challenge of what many call a “supermarket identity”, where individuals’ identities are no longer shaped by historical, cultural, religious and traditional identities or loyalties, but are encouraged to challenge this inherited identity and, exercising freedom of individual choice, to determine their loyalties from a mix of proposals and offers, through the media, commerce and a broad cultural environment. So, that is the first implication of globalisation: a challenge to the emotional and cultural basis on which the legitimacy of states and governments rests. That has internal and external consequences in terms of internal politics, the growth of consumerism, and what some call privatism, which is often reflected in the erosion of a public, a so-called republican, spirit, and an increasing alienation of the public in the western world from the democratic process – or, at least, a perception that it is irrelevant.
In many countries, the view that political participation, as defined by electoral politics, is the cornerstone of stability has been slowly replaced by the view that the relationships between politicians and citizens can be mediated by television, so when we speak of the media, we mean it literally. This is also linked to the increasing erosion of the authority of political leaders and the substitution of other authority figures, in the public mind, as those who truly reflect the national spirit, such as talk-show hosts and idols of popular adulation. It, of course, involves a very negative aspect, because we may face the situation when some social groups or extremists appoint, or nominate, themselves as the only guardians of values and morality in the contemporary world. What are the international contexts of such a situation? So far, we have not really experienced a major global crisis in the modern media age. How will populations react when they are able to make their own judgements and obtain information perhaps more quickly than their decision-makers? How will contemporary politicians react when they see themselves constrained not only by the imperatives of diplomacy and national interests, but also by public reaction to their image in the electronic media? Will it matter, given what I have mentioned above about the process of the alienation of citizens from the political process? Again, I see the emergence of the phenomenon of new public authorities and new pressure groups that articulate popular concerns through new avenues and political leaders looking not only to traditional constituencies for reaction, but to those who speak in the name of those constituencies, who I believe will be different from traditional politicians. Yet, the implications of globalisation for the individual are greatest not simply in the sphere of identity, but, above all, the sphere of individual morality.
There is a danger of globalisation being linked to the concept of the freeing of the individual from priorities and duties, towards a moral order where human action is justified by the utilitarian benefits of transient self-satisfaction. Again, there is a temptation that is inherently contained in the development of individuals, understood not as individual responsibility, but of the individual as the “global consumer” – unmediated by responsibilities and restrictions of appetites. And, as I said at the beginning, here we come again to the danger that some extremists, from the left and from the right, could be seen as the guarantors of common values and morality. And, of course, it could involve new tensions and conflicts, on an internal as well as on international levels, because it leads to a kind of xenophobia and nationalism. We have to answer the question: how would we deal with the question in a globalised world? I see an increasing danger that many democracies, faced by threats to their security or faced with questions of diplomacy, will be unable to adopt the correct response to such a challenge because of a paralysis of political will brought on by a loss of faith in the value of one’s own political and cultural system.
The second level at which globalisation is a challenge, in my opinion, is the family. To be precise, the challenge raised by the phenomena which accompany globalisation, namely technological development and the clear erosion of traditional loyalties. I see the family as a crucial social institution for inculcating moral reflection, as well as supporting the broader social structures upon which social stability depends. It is through the family that moral instincts are generated and a sense of duty is inculcated. It is this that drives the individual to recognise that his well-being is dependent on the existence of social institutions that come before his own choosing. That is why any challenge to the family must be cause for special concern. Often we are told that the development of global technology and instant communications is a great force for liberation; of course, it is true that it becomes difficult to understand how the existing totalitarian regimes in the world can continue to exist for much longer when their citizens have the potential to access information unrestricted by their national powers. But the question remains as to the nature of the societies that emerge into the modern technological age, and whether the moral and social atomisation that was wrought by autocracy and totalitarian systems will not be replaced by the moral and social atomisation of the value-free Internet and 200-channel digital television networks. It is quite conceivable that, under the guise of liberation from the shackles of conformism and received traditional moral notions, future populations will not, in fact, become subjects but, instead, will be defenceless against the shifting tides of moral demands and dilemmas that the new globalised world will thrust upon them.
Here, I think, that I would like to go rather quickly to the discussion because I think that we can only put forth the questions today. We are not ready to answer all the questions; but I think that it is really very important to make a list of the questions and problems we face and that we will face in the future. The question that the organisers have asked us, New Partners of Globalisation (Actors or Subjects?). The question rightly implies that individuals and nations need to participate in the process of globalisation as subjects rather than objects, so I think that we need to examine the question: what sort of individuals, and what sort of nations, do we need in order to make such participation possible and desirable, and what sort of values should they be instilling into this new global challenge. And here I see a big role for leadership, but I think that everybody agrees that in the contemporary world we have also the phenomenon of an erosion of leadership, of leaders. I would like to point out that those who serve their nation and society are playing different roles in societies. Not only real politicians, but also some other persons playing political roles in societies – being in public office – must never forget that they have a responsibility, above all, not to their short-term political interests, but to act as guardians of the institutions and habits that make democracy and the respect for human rights possible. Inevitably, that places a greater burden of responsibility upon them than it does on ordinary people, but that is the burden that has been freely taken up by them. Respect for the law, and for the promotion of the values of personal moral decency, is a duty for political leaders and not a private choice for reasons of self-interest.
Václav Havel, in his works, has spoken of the need to recover the sense for a need to care for the soul. I agree that this is the key to the recovery of individual responsibility, without which human dignity, and the desire to value the individual as a subject and not as an object, cannot be preserved. But I would go further and argue that in today’s globalised world there is a need to care also for the polis, to use the Greek word, in other words, to nurture the republican virtues without which no political system can be stable and maintain its ability to move the hearts and minds of its citizens to defend it. The alternative is not man as a liberated subject but as a defenceless object; individuals without souls; societies without identity; and an international order guided by technology and unaccountable bureaucrats. Because this picture is of a world which is de-humanised and objectified, I believe that true subjectivity can be maintained through the recovery of humanity.
And at the end, as I said at the beginning, globalisation is an historical process that, for the moment, seems unstoppable. But, as so often in history, the course of events is a product of human choice and not historical inevitability, and I feel that it is precisely through the exercise of choice that people and nations can determine the substance of globalisation and not be consumed by its form. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you, Mrs Suchocka. There were many, many questions there, and I hope that we will have answers also from Dr Karan Singh, the second speaker of the panel.
In 1967, Dr Karan Singh was inducted as a member of the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. At the age of 36, he was the youngest person ever to become a central cabinet minister in India. Dr Karan Singh is an author of distinction, having written a number of books on political science, philosophical essays and poems, also in English. He has also composed many devotional songs in his mother tongue, Dogri, and is a keen student of Indian classical music. Dr Karan Singh has come to be recognised as an outstanding thinker and leader in India and abroad. Dr Singh, the floor is yours.

Karan Singh
Humanity today stands at a crucial crossroads in its long and tortuous history on Planet Earth. It now has the resources and technology to abolish hunger and illiteracy, want and unemployment from the face of the earth within the next two decades. But what it lacks is the wisdom and compassion to achieve this goal. We have broken the space barrier, explored the planets, and are reaching out for the stars themselves, but we have not been able to break the shackles of poverty and hunger, despotism and malnutrition, that still hold more than half the human race in servitude. The theme of our Forum 2000 conference, called by President Václav Havel in this historic and magnificent Prague Castle – to take stock of the human condition today and the prospects for the next century – is, therefore, timely and urgent.
The history of humanity over many thousands of years can be conceptualised as a series of transitions: first from the caves to the forests, then to nomadic, pastoral, agricultural, pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial civilisations. It is now clear that we are involved in what is, perhaps, the most fundamental and difficult of all transitions, the transition to a global society. Powered by multiple revolutions in science and technology, all aspects of life on this planet are in the process of globalisation. Politics and economics, trade and commerce, industry and communications, as well as cultural aspects, such as dance and music, food and drink, are all in the grip of the globalisation process. The Internet now provides a unique methodology in interaction, cutting across all barriers of nationality or religion, sex or economic status.
While many of these developments are obviously positive, because for the first time we are knitting the human race together as in the ancient Vedic concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, “the world is a family”, we cannot deny the fact that there are also some very negative aspects. Drugs and drug trafficking, terrorism and arms trafficking, sexually transmitted diseases, and a steady diet of horror and violence, ultra-consumerism and hyper-promiscuity, a curious obsession with death, disaster and dinosaurs on film and television, all represent dangerous and negative trends. Whether we like it or not, the processes of globalisation have become virtually irreversible, as you, Madam, have said. And as we enter the third millennium AD, we must seriously consider how the positive aspects can be highlighted and the negative ones counteracted. And here is a question I would like to pose to the affluent societies of the West. Are we the new Atlantis, the fabled continent rich and glittering with untold wealth and material affluence, which we are told one night sank below the waves, unable to survive its own technological ingenuity? Are we a gigantic Titanic, full of hubris and arrogance, speeding inexorably towards a fatal encounter with the primeval forces of nature? These are questions we must all confront.
Our session, Madam moderator, is devoted to the topic, The New Partners of Globalisation (Actors or Subjects?) This raises crucial questions. Are we going to be active partners in the process of globalisation, or simply passive on-lookers blown away in the typhoon of change that is sweeping across the world? Will globalisation result in the permanent domination of one nation and one culture, or will we move into a pluralistic, multi-polar and multi-cultural society in the century that lies ahead? And what is the role of the individual in confronting these monumental alternatives that now confront the human race?
The answers to these questions will depend on several factors. To take the political factor first, it is essential that the whole United Nations system should be restructured in order to make it more responsive to the realities half a century after the end of the Second World War. At present, the five permanent members of the Security Council represent just about one-third of the human population, while two-thirds are placed in a secondary position. This situation emerged at the end of the war, when the victors understandably arrogated to themselves a special status. However, the world has changed dramatically since then. It is clearly anomalous that countries like Germany and Japan, with their amazing post-war resurgence, huge nations like India and Brazil, and the whole African continent should remain outside the pale of permanent membership of the Security Council. A creative restructuring of the United Nations is long overdue. And, although discussions have been going on for some time, I would submit that it would be most appropriate if the matter is clinched in the year 2000, so that in the next millennium there could be a more equitable world order.
The second aspect is the economy. The global fiscal and financial structures are facing severe pressures, and the ongoing crisis in Asian markets represents a major challenge to the present system. If we plan to be actors and not subjects, we surely cannot accept the complete and permanent domination of the World Bank/IMF monetary policies. While these estimable institutions have no doubt provided invaluable support over the past half-century, it is necessary for several strong regional economic groupings to emerge so as to ensure a more equitable world order. Hazel Henderson spoke this morning of a new financial architecture, a new Bretton Woods conference. It is quite clear that the outmoded system of half a century ago needs to be thoroughly re-shaped and reconstituted. One can immediately identify at least ten such regional groupings: North America and the European Union, ASEAN and SAARC, Latin America and Australasia, China and Japan, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world. The European Union, of which the Czech Republic is trying to become an important partner, represents a dynamic model for other regions. Despite whatever reservations and difficulties you may have here, to us it is truly amazing that the countries of Europe, which were literally at each other’s throats for a thousand years and whose conflicts kept the whole world in turmoil, have – as a result of economic compulsion and enlightened political leadership – transcended their traditional animosities and forged an economic, monetary and quasi-political union. I really think this has been an extraordinary, almost miraculous, achievement, because our schoolbooks were full of European wars – the Hundred Year War, the Thirty Years War, the War of the Roses, the Crusades, the First World War, the Second World War. We were fed up with all these stories of European wars and we had to remember the dates on which certain people were assassinated and where they were assassinated. Whatever difficulties you may be having now, and whatever problems you may be confronting, are nothing compared with the tremendous achievements that have been made in this field. It is my sincere hope that this will be the path adopted in South Asia, the region to which I belong, so that the recently acquired nuclear capabilities are put to creative, rather than destructive, purposes.
The third element – I have spoken of the political and the economic elements – is the cultural factor, in which I would include the educational dimension. What the global society requires is not a homogenisation of culture, but rather a situation in which each civilisation makes its special contribution to the rich mosaic of the emerging global society. Asian cultures, of course, go back unbroken to the dawn of history thousands of years before the birth of Christ, which, incidentally, is why the year 2000 is not quite as exciting for us as it is in the West. Our histories are much, much older. The year 2000 just happens to be one episode in the long and exciting history of the human race on Planet Earth. We appreciate that – because of Western dominance – it has assumed a special significance and we join the rest of the world in it, but I think it is worthwhile to point out that the Indic religions – Buddhism, Janism, Hinduism particularly, and the Chinese tradition – go back at least 3,000-5,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. These cultures, particularly the Indian and Chinese traditions, which between them represent 40 per cent of the human race, must play an appropriate role in the global cultural renaissance, if we are to become positive actors and not passive subjects.
I would like here to draw the attention of this distinguished gathering to the Report of the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century set up by UNESCO (under the chairmanship of Jacques Delors, who played such an important role in the development of the European Union), and of which I had the privilege of being a member. It is entitled Learning: The Treasure Within, and deals with a wide spectrum of educational thinking at many levels, from which the nations of the world can derive considerable advantage. It points out, and I quote, “that we must be guided by the Utopian aim of steering the world towards greater mutual understanding, a greater sense of responsibility and greater solidarity, through acceptance of our spiritual and cultural differences”. What is needed, in fact, is creative symbiosis between science and spirituality, and it is by this alone that we can achieve our collective goals.
As far as the environment is concerned, the situation as we enter the 21st century is very disturbing. The hopes that were raised at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 have not been fulfilled – mainly, I am sorry to say, because the developed nations have not lived up to their commitments. On the contrary, the situation appears to be steadily deteriorating. The massive floods in China and South Asia this year show that the process of global warming has begun even sooner than expected, while recent reports that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has widened substantially is cause for great concern. If we are to move towards any kind of sustainable society in the next century, we will have to reverse the plundering of planet earth that has been such a tragic feature of the 20th. Mother Earth, Gaia in the Greek tradition, Bhavani Vasundhara in the Hindu, has nurtured consciousness up from the slime of the primeval ocean four billion years ago to where we are today. We have to repay our debt to nature by reversing our narrowly anthropocentric policies of exploitation and dominance and to begin the long process of nurturing the earth and healing her wounds. I would like to draw your attention to that magnificent photograph, the most beautiful ever taken, the photograph of the planet Earth taken from outer space that should be in every classroom, it should be in every conference room where globalisation is discussed. That shows our world as is really is – a tiny speck of light and life against the unending vastness of outer space – so beautiful, and yet so fragile. Mother Earth has nurtured us for billions and billions of years and we now have to undertake the process of nurturing her and healing her wounds. If this is not done, actors and subjects alike will be overwhelmed by the processes of environmental disaster. The population bomb is also ticking away. We have already crossed the six billion mark, and at the rate we are going we’ll probably hit 15 or 20 billion by the end of the next century. And if this trend continues, the world will face a major food and water crisis in the course of the next century which can cause domestic and international havoc and chaos. Starvation has already become endemic in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Finally, fellow delegates, there is the critical role of religions, which continue to influence the behaviour of billions on this planet. While there has, of late, been an upsurge in the world’s great religions, it is essential that this should be channelled towards a new level of understanding based on mutual respect, which is the basic premise of the inter-faith movement, and that we should not be allowed to slide back into the age of the crusades and the Jihads that devastated the planet centuries ago, even with primitive military technology. International terrorism, based upon religious fanaticism, is emerging as another major threat to a sane, global society, and its malign effects are already becoming visible on several continents. A creative re-interpretation of great religious texts is urgently necessary if religion is to live up to its name as a force that unites, rather than divides, human beings. I am, myself, deeply involved in the Inter-faith movement and would be glad to speak upon this at some length during our conference if a suitable opportunity arises. Cultural empowerment, especially of women, is often determined by the prevailing religious tradition. Women can no longer be relegated to a secondary position in the new globalism. Indeed, the suppression of the feminine, as several creative thinkers have pointed out, has been at the root of much of the horror and violence that we have witnessed in our own century.
Friends, this finally leads me to the spiritual dimension, which transcends all differences of race and religion, creed and nationality, sex and sexual preference, and represents the real link between each individual being on this planet. Fanning the spiritual spark within each one of us into the blazing fire of spiritual realisation is the next major goal of human evolution. What the Bible calls “the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world”, and what the Vedic rishis of ancient India speak of as “the Great Being shining like a thousand suns beyond the darkness” describes the inner light that resides in the deepest recesses of our consciousness. In the final analyses, the extent to which each one of us is able to experience that light may well determine whether we will be passive subjects or dynamic actors as we hurtle headlong into the next millennium astride the irreversible arrow of time.
Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you, Dr Singh. I will give the floor now to the four panellists. The first is Mr Gareth Evans.

Gareth Evans
I think we are all very much indebted to both Hanna Suchocká and Karan Singh for opening up multiple lines of discussion this afternoon on this theme. I want to just focus, rather more prosaically than Karan, on one of those themes and that is the issue of how we deal with the reality that globalisation is unstoppable, in Hanna Suchocka’s words, or irreversible, in the words of Karan Singh. And yet, at the same time, the reality of the new globalised economy we are all experiencing is manifestly delivering not much in the way of efficiency, not much certainly in the way of equity – certainly not as much efficiency and not as much equity as we would like. The basic conclusion I want to reach reflects the note that Karan Singh finished on, and that is that passivity is not an option for any actor in the national environment or in the international community in dealing with this reality.
I think the best short definition of globalisation that I’ve heard, at least in an economic context, is one that puts it this way: it is a new economic reality in which everyone competes with everyone else. That reality is a product, more than anything else, of the new technology, both the new productive technology and the extraordinary new communications technology which has meant that we see, all around the world, a convergence: a convergence in demand for goods and services that people want or think they want; and a convergence in supply, in the sense of a capacity to meet that demand. That convergence has been transcending all the familiar distinctions and differences between countries and cultures and political ideologies. We’re all actors now in the globalisation process. We’re all caught up with it, whether we like it or not. I think it is important, before we get to the downside, to appreciate that globalisation is very much an opportunity and a positive challenge. There is an increasing capacity, everywhere in the world, to meet the new demands that are being generated: productive technology is mobile, capital is mobile, skills and labour are mobile, and the old rules of comparative advantage have really been turned upside down. And countries and entrepreneurs who are quick on their feet can sell almost anything, anywhere. I’ll just give you an example from the Australian experience. Probably a lot of people around this table, certainly many people in Australia, think the limits of our globalising aspirations should be to put a pair of woollen socks on the feet of 1.3 billion Chinese. But that’s not, I think, the end of it. One of the things that we have succeeded in doing, in the new globalised environment, is becoming world leaders in, among other things, the design and construction of double-hold 400-Plus vehicle ferries which, among other things, have just won the Blue Ribbon for the fastest passenger vessel crossing of the Atlantic, and all this in a hitherto very depressed economic region of Australia. This is part of the new opportunities that have been generated all around the world.
So, the basic dynamic of globalisation is a “given”, and it’s absolutely futile and pointless to rage against it, to fulminate against it, or to try to resist it. It’s as futile as it was for those workers to smash the first stocking or sock-manufacturing machines some centuries ago, and any country that does try to totally insulate itself, or isolate itself, from the process – keeping out not only capital and investment, but the people and the ideas and the information flow, like Burma tried to do for so many years, like the communist countries sought to do for the most of that period – any country that tries that now is obviously condemning itself to an ever decaying standard of living for its people. But, because the basic dynamic of globalisation is a “given”, that doesn’t mean that anyone should be passive about accepting all the consequences of globalisation; and those who worship at the altar of the completely free market, here as anywhere else, are worshipping a very false god indeed. Free markets are never perfectly efficient. Whether you’re talking on a local, national or global scale, there will always be imperfections and distortions that we ignore at our peril. We would have thought, as an international community, that after witnessing the “tulip bubble” in the 17th century, and the “south-sea bubble” in the 18th century, and the “railway bubble” in the 19th century, and the collapse of Wall Street earlier in this century, we might have conceivably been able to avoid something like the “hedge fund bubble” that we are now witnessing. But we haven’t, and the consequences of that are alarming. The consequences of what someone memorably described, a few days ago, as the greatest withdrawal of liquidity since Moses (with a little help from the Almighty) parted the Red Sea not so long ago. So, there’s an efficiency problem: the system is not delivering, as we see in the current liquidity crisis; and, there’s obviously an equity problem, because free markets are never equitable in delivering benefits, or even basic subsistence, to all those who need it. So the basic message is, by all means, accept the reality, accept the challenge, accept the opportunity of globalisation; but work like hell at all levels to moderate and smooth and channel and civilise the impact of that phenomenon.
The main responsibility for doing all that clearly falls on national governments and on international organisations. And it is a dual responsibility: everyone has to act both intelligently and compassionately, with a sense of equity. We have to see that as two sides of the same coin, not as competing aspirations. Too often, at the national government level, we see economic policy as being a matter of satisfying the hard heads, and social policy being conducted by someone else, with an aim of satisfying the soft heads. Again, internationally, we’re seeing something of the same phenomenon. There is a bit of a disposition to see the IMF as being the tough guys who are applying market disciplines, satisfying the hard heads, while it’s the World Bank’s job to pick up the pieces with social spending to satisfy those who are agonising about the equity consequences of all this.
But frankly, we should not check in our compassion and our sense of equity at the cloak-room when we sit down to discuss how to address most intelligently the economic malfunctioning of globalisation. Nor should we check in our intelligence when we are focusing on the equity and the compassion issues. They are both sides of the same coin. So, what are the prescriptions, then, on the national government level, or on an international level? There has to be a non-passive response to this phenomenon and that non-passive response means, among many other things, just a quick checklist of some of the things that I think are most important.
First of all, it is necessary to act on the national level, certainly to protect the losers, to protect the victims of change, as well as just applauding the winners. Again, the experience of my country is a microcosm of a much larger problem elsewhere. We had a report, recently, which indicated that the changes that we had made to the Australian economy over a period of years, in response to the phenomenon of globalisation to make Australia lean and taut and competitive with the rest of the world, had meant that we generated something like 500,000 new jobs over the period in question. But we had also lost 200,000 jobs over exactly that same period, and they weren’t the same people: the people who had lost their jobs weren’t the ones that were getting the new jobs. And therein lies one huge social problem in my country, and just about every other country in the world that has experienced this phenomenon. And it is the obligation of governments not to wash our hands of this problem, but to deal with it and to mobilise the resources, to deal with it in an equitable way.
The second prescription, I think, for governments is: we must all invest in human capital, in education, in training, in skills, in the job readiness for the sorts of jobs that are going to be generated in the new highly competitive globalised environment. If we are going to be able, in each of our countries, to translate opportunity into job-creating reality, we have to be able to satisfy, on the labour supply side, the new kinds of demands for new levels of skills that are involved. Education and training in this way simply has to be seen as a public good demanding the mobilisation of public resources. The market is not going to do provide in a timely way the years of advanced preparations that are necessary, that means the combinations of skills, and the quantum of skills, that are going to be required if every country is to take advantage effectively of the new environment.
The third prescription, I think, for every national government, is to recognise the reality of the disciplines imposed by globalisation and not to settle for short-term quick populist fixes when the heat really starts to impact. In the Asian economic crises, it has been very instructive to watch the reactions of the various countries involved. There were two possible kinds of reaction. One was to go back to the old way of doing things, to say that “if this is the impact of globalisation, we want no part in it; let’s go back to the connections, the crony-ism, the non-transparent back-room dealing, because that’s the way we knew best; and, that is what stood us in good stead.” The other reaction has been to say, “well, if this is what globalisation, and the exposure of our economies to these kinds of new disciplines and new pressures means, then we just have to get it right; we have to strengthen our financial institutions, we have to make them transparent; and, we have to, at the same time, do exactly the same thing to our political institutions, because it’s only through the political disciplines, through open and transparent political institutions, that we are going to keep the financial system viable and honest and of a kind that can generate investor confidence.” And, I have to say, there’s been something of a disparity in the way in which countries have gone... Initially, there was a lot of optimism that countries were choosing the second way, the way of transparency, institutional strengthening, learning positive discipline lessons. More recently, we’ve seen some unhappy examples in one or two countries, of a trend back, a plunge back, in the other direction. I simply hope that’s not sustained, because we do have to recognise that this new, globalised environment does demand new disciplines that have to be carried through.
The last prescription I have for national governments, and this is particularly critical for the big guys in the world whose actions really matter, is that we must avoid parochialism in the way in which we respond to these pressures. We have to recognise the reality of interdependence, and that what we do is going to have consequences elsewhere, which are likely to come back and haunt us. And, I think this is a particularly pertinent observation to make in relation to the reaction of the United States at the moment, to what’s been going on, and in particular the reaction of the Congress with its orgy of tasteless privacy-invading and political point-scoring at a time when the world is desperately crying out for non-parochial leadership in dealing with the problems that beset us. Henry Kissinger spoke this morning of being worried about the American people saying, in due course, “to hell with Kosovo” and “to hell with that kind of involvement”. I think what Henry needs to acknowledge is the truth that at the moment the US Congress has already said “to hell with the rest of the world” in what it’s doing with the IMF quota increase – whatever you think of the IMF, that’s certainly the only institution we have that is capable of engaging in these large- scale institutional bail-outs at the moment. The US Congress is also saying, “to hell with the United Nations” in terms of the contribution of the US to the UN, which is now making hopelessly non-viable further peace-keeping commitments by many countries as bills have not been paid. And, just for good measure, the US Congress is also saying “to hell with giving fast-track negotiating authority for ongoing trade liberalisation reform to the US administration”.
So, there really is a desperate necessity for political leadership here, to avoid the kind of parochialism to which so many countries are prone and which can have such devastating consequences when the biggest countries, the most influential countries, succumb to that. So, there’s simply no substitute for leadership: that’s true of major countries; it’s true of international organisations; and, after all, international organisations, at the end of the day, are prisoners of their own membership, their own individual countries who control them, who govern them. We have not seen that leadership, frankly, from the G7 in the past few days in response to the current liquidity crisis. There were no big new ideas that emerged from that meeting: no global Marshall plan of the kind that’s been muted, certainly nothing of the kind even suggesting a re-inauguration or a re-convening of a Bretton Woods conference, no willingness to explore ideas that have been around for a long time and might have been very helpful indeed as a response to some of the problems of uncontrolled short-term capital flows. There was no response in the way of an effective package for Brazil, no response in the form of a co-operative, stimulatory package in which the United States, Europe and Japan might jointly have engaged. I think there is a very, very real concern when we see the political leadership of the world abdicating its responsibility to act in a very positive and effective way in response to these crises.
This is not the occasion to spill any more of that out in detail, but the point I want to make is that there is no room for complacency when we talk about all of this. The problems of the globalised economy are not self-correcting problems for anybody, and they are certainly not self-correcting for the non-western economies and the newest participants in Central and Eastern Europe, for example, in the globalisation process. Dealing with these problems will require intelligent and principled commitment to action that won’t require mere passivity from all the different actors involved and, if that’s going to happen, it’s going to need, more than anything else, a change of mind-set, a change in the way we think about things and, maybe at the end of the day, that’s what a conference like this can contribute most to doing – changing that mind-set and adding to the voices that say there must be a commitment to the application of intelligent, principled action. There must not be the kind of passivity we have seen so far. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you very much. I too don’t want to be passive, but active, so I will give the floor to Mr Krishan Kumar.

Krishan Kumar
Thank you. Hanna Suchocká suggested a kind of re-formulation of the title of our session this afternoon, which I found very much in keeping with my own way of thinking. She implied rather than said this, but the title should be not so much The New Partners of Globalisation (Actors or Subjects?), but The New Partners of Globalisation (Objects or Subjects?). Because I think it’s clear that what we’re really talking about is whether or not the forces of globalisation will flatten groups across the world, in other words make them the objects of impersonal economic and cultural and technological development, or whether groups will become the subjects of their own history and their own destiny. We’re really talking about who has control over their lives in a situation in which things seems to be getting out of control. There have been, I think, two ways of thinking about globalisation, which I just want to raise in order to reject, and then suggest a third way of thinking about it.
One very popular way has been sloganised as Jihad versus McWorld. Many of you probably know this is a name of an article, and then a book, by the American political scientist Benjamin R. Barber and you can probably work out, from these two terms, what he is talking about. “McWorld” are the forces of globalisation, primarily inspired by Western models of rationality and functionality and secularisation, in a word, globalisation; and “Jihad,” perhaps a slightly unfortunate use of that term. McWorld seems to me entirely appropriate for the forces of globalisation, taking McDonalds as a kind of emblem of the tasteless global product, Jihad is slightly less the right word, but it’s meant to imply that there is a reaction to this homogenising, globalising McDonaldisation of the world which emphasises particular local, ethnic, national, perhaps rather regressive anti-modern or pre-modern forces. It is a kind of dialectic of challenge and response. McDonaldisation is the challenge, Jihad is the response. Now, I think it is unfortunate in many ways, partly in the choice of terminology, but it’s also unfortunate in the way it dichotomises the civilisation process, as if there is either the acceptance of the McDonaldised world or you have to fall back on a jihad-type response, which suggests that you are rejecting many aspects of modernity which, of course, most of us don’t want to, and most of the world doesn’t want to either. It suggests an unpalatable series of alternatives, and that’s one good reason for rejecting it as a description, certainly as a prescription, of what might be going on in the world today.
The other assumption about globalisation is that the main actors, perhaps the only actors, are nation-states. Whether as subjects or objects, it’s nation-states which are doing the acting and the reacting in this globalisation process, and I want to put to you the situation as seen from other groups within European societies to suggest what could be a third way of thinking about partnership in the global era.
I’m thinking here of the position of non-European groups in European society. In many European societies – I am not quite sure what the situation is exactly like in Eastern Europe – in Western Europe, in countries like France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, non-European groups make up something like 10 per cent of the population. In the case of Switzerland, it is actually as high as 16 per cent. So, we’re talking here about substantial minorities that don’t share the same cultural heritage of European civilisation, but who are very much here in Europe and here to stay. They are no longer guest-workers, and even the word “immigrant” is no longer appropriate for most of them, since many of them have been born in Europe.
Now, not all these groups are Muslims. There are Hindus in Britain, there are Christians from Africa and the Caribbean. But I think it’s fair to say that it is Islam, it’s the Muslims in Europe, that pose the greatest problems of national and, indeed, European identity of populations of European societies. Islam is now a European religion. In fact, it’s actually more of a European religion than Christianity, certainly if one takes into account the actual participation of Christians in their churches. In a country like England, where only 7 per cent of the population go to church on Sunday, it is very difficult to call it a Christian country, whereas Muslim groups seem to actually practise and perform their religion rather more than most Christian groups. Anyway, Islam is part of Europe, that’s the point.
People of Muslim origin and descent live in Europe as Europeans. There have been endless debates about whether they should be assimilated into Europe, or integrated into Europe, or what precise situation they should occupy in European societies. Integration, assimilation, pluralism, these have been theories that have been tossed around, both in theory and practice, for decades now and none of them seem to be working. One reason is that they assume a certain kind of European identity, or a model of European society, to which these other groups are supposed to assimilate. In reaction to that, many of them have been taking precisely the jihad route. That is to say, they have been over-stressing their ethnic identities; the identities they, or their parents or their grand-parents, brought with them from countries outside Europe. They’ve been forced almost – by the policy and thinking of their host societies – to over-emphasise their ethnic distinctiveness, to say: “We are Muslims.”
I think the Salman Rushdie affair in Europe, both in the way in which Muslim groups acted and the way in which European groups reacted to their actions – as well as such things as the affair of the head-scarves in France – illustrate this process of challenge and response in the worst possible way. I mean “worst” in the sense of leading to more and more conflict and more and more exclusion on both sides. As a result, there does seem to be a third way of negotiating that dilemma, which certain groups among the non-European population seem to have taken, and that is to emphasise not exclusively their ethnicity, nor their nationality, but to work towards something that people have now tried to call transnational citizenship, post-national citizenship, cosmopolitan citizenship. I am talking in Utopian terms now, because these are things do not exist yet, but could; however,, unlike Professor Kissinger I think Utopia is a good, not a bad, word; and, I think it is a healthy, rather than unhealthy instinct in Western thought. We do need to think in Utopian terms if we want to get anywhere.
This third form of thinking suggests that you draw upon certain particular aspects of your identity – particularism, perhaps your ethnic identity, your religion, your Mohammedanism. But you don’t necessarily feel that it is the only identity you have, nor do you have to take on necessarily the national identity of the host society in which you live; so that a Turk in Germany doesn’t have to be either Turkish or German. There is something else that they can be, something rather new – neither Turkish nor German – something that they have been able to negotiate by making use of the international institutions which exist, particularly the institutions that prescribe and try to enforce human rights. The ways in which groups in European societies have been trying to mark out this new kind of citizenship has been precisely by appealing to the International Court, both in a metaphorical and in a literal sense: the International Court of Human Rights, the International Agreement on Human Rights, to claim rights as members of a world community rather then as members of a national or an ethnic community.
There is a slogan coined by a Turkish immigrant group in Stuttgart: “Mother tongue is human right”. Now what they were claiming was that they should be allowed to be taught in Turkish in German schools; but they claimed it not as Turks, not in ethnic terms, not saying, “We are Turks, we’ve come from Turkey and we want to preserve our Turkish ethnic identity”. They claimed it as a human right, as a universal right, and it’s this kind of marriage between the sub-national, for want of a better word, regional, local, ethnic particularisms that we all carry with us. Perhaps, in terms like those Madam Suchocká used about the family, there are certain institutions that give us our identity at the local and the regional level, the very concrete level; but we also interact with the levels above us, and I am suggesting that the nation-state might not necessarily be the right level for us to be interacting with. Globalisation has, in a sense, made the nation-state passé in all kinds of ways, and this is a good thing. But there are other kinds of international institutions we need to support, to strengthen, to allow this kind of interaction to take place between local groups and the global arena.
Now, that would be to me the kind of partnership that globalisation does make possible. That, in a sense, would give social groups and individuals subjectivity in the true sense, or the ability to determine their futures in a way they want to. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you, Mr Kumar. I will give the floor to the Hungarian voice, Mr Sükösd.

Miklós Sükösd
Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson. I’d like to talk about the mass media, the global media as a set of new global institutions. Mrs Suchocká mentioned the media as a major set of new actors that create a new media culture. She talked of talk-show hosts that provide us with potential loyalties, with potential identities in a situation in which we can choose among many potential identities and she talked about the supermarket identity. Dr Kissinger spoke this morning about similar issues, when he referred to the transition from the “book culture” to the new “image culture”, the end of the Gutenberg galaxy that’s been taken over by the Internet, computer images and TV images, and he expressed concern over the emotional power of these images, even in creating shifts in public opinion, US and global public opinion. He, I think, used the term “talk-show hosts making foreign policy”. If you allow me, I would like to explore this topic for a few minutes.
I couldn’t agree more that we have entered the age of image culture, of sound-bite culture, hundreds of potentially available media channels, TV channels, endless numbers of Internet web pages, home pages, chat forums, bulletin boards, on-line services, news channels; and, it’s not only that. We also live in an era in which governments and international actors hire public relations agencies in order to create beneficial images in order to bombard potential voters and decision-makers with messages, images, stories and narratives that may serve their power interests. This is very far from the traditional European high culture norm of rational discussion, open-ended discussion as expressed by Jurgen Habermas’s famous concept of the public sphere and communicative rationality. How can we face this? What kind of options do we have, at this point, when we tackle the media as a new important set of players at the turn of the new millennium? Let me go back to history for a moment.
In the United States, we have a mostly commercial media system and only a tiny island of public service media that tries to keep quality programming on the air and on cable. This system looks at audiences as consumers and not as citizens, as potential buyers and not as potential discussants of public matters, public affairs. Media professionals talk about the media bringing audiences to marketers, to advertisers, and not about the media providing programming for their audiences. This is the economist logic that Hazel Henderson referred to earlier, in a different context. In Europe, history was very different. From the 1920s, in Britain the early BBC defined the public monopoly over the airwaves and declared that only public service broadcasting could be aired. Regulation was the answer in Europe through the decades of the century. First, public service monopolies, then, even in the 1970s and 1990s, a certain level of regulation was maintained when cable television and satellite television de-regulated and de-monopolised the media system. Still, significant funds were provided to maintain public-service programming and even within commercial broadcasting certain norms and quotas were set.
Now we are entering, or more exactly, in the last few years we have witnessed, with the European Union, a third era of European-level regulation, and still quotas are the key word, quotas for a European cultural industry against the Hollywood massacre of the popular cultural scene, and quotas for “quality programming,” whatever that means. I believe that this tradition of high-brow, noble, high-quality regulation is endangered for technological reasons. Mr Evans mentioned convergence in several senses as a major feature of globalisation. Convergence is also the key word of mass-media technologies. Different media, which had hitherto been separate media, are now becoming parts of one unified multi-media system. We had radio, television, computers, the Internet, video, CD-ROM, you name it, satellite television, cable television, as separate branches of mass media – and telecommunications, telephone systems is another branch. What we are witnessing today is the convergence of these different media into one system that uses former telecommunications lines as its basic fibre-optics networks for carrying hundreds of television channels and Internet message carriers. You can watch TV on the Internet, we can already listen to radio and we can use our computers to listen to CD-ROMs. This is not some future sci-fi, this is happening now and, for a few thousand dollars, any well-off western citizen could buy this kind of multi-media. How can we use these new multi-media for the noble aims we are talking about here? I think one answer could be more optimistic than Dr Kissinger’s was. I think it’s learning the language of the sound-bite culture, of visual images, of emotional broadcasts. In the environmental scene, Greenpeace International is following this logic when it plans and executes very colourful, very vivid media actions, media events. At the same time, it also provides scientific evidence, research evidence in the background, with a double strategy.
The other strategy is to support public media, or quality media, from several resources. You can name the largest private foundations in the world, and it can be easily envisaged that they might support media programs. For example, documentary filming, collaborative projects of film-makers, movie-makers, television activists, media activists from different countries. Local, national, regional, even global funds could be available for this. As multi-media sweeps away attempts at regulation on a global level, it is very hard to control the output, the actual screen. How can you control the content of an on-line news service? Using the old concepts is meaningless in the new media age. In other words, I would see the input level as a potential way of maintaining quality in the sea of commercial, sensationalist broadcasting, and also public agencies could play a role. There may be an option to set up national public foundations to tax commercial televisions or media and re-distribute funds to quality media, smaller media, professional media, civic media and so on. I have not only public affairs or political broadcasting in mind, but programmes about ethical issues, spiritual issues, religious issues, any kind of non-commercial programming. Thank you very much.

Magda Vašáryová
I will give the floor now to Mr Forbrig for five minutes.

Joerg Forbrig
Thank you very much. I am also one of the student participants here, but, nevertheless, I’d like to refer to an issue which is not usually an issue with which youth is concerned.
In the first place, I’d like to draw your attention to a fact which, I think, is very important if we are to approach all the problems we are here to approach. I have the impression that we are caught in a certain mind-set that does not really allow us to ask the right questions about changes that are going on. What I have in mind is the concept of states, the concept of nation-states.
If we take a society, or the setting that we are leaving behind us, we find that, on a political, economic, cultural and social level, nation-states embody a certain congruency with economic globalisation, for instance, but with a differentiation of lifestyles, of certain cultural attributes. I think that the state is not the agent any more, or the arena any more, that caters for this congruency. We have certain levels that move beyond the state level, the supra-national level. We have certain cultural minorities, life-style minorities, which are moving, rather, to a sub-state level. If the environment is diverging so much from the setting that we have left behind, that is, if there is this conceptual shift, then I can imagine we need a completely new paradigm. The question would then be whether the state is obsolete; to what extent can we imagine democracy to be still in place, in the setting of a state or a nation-state; or to what extent it has to move beyond both on to a sub-state level. Only if we are aware of that conceptual bias can we ask the right questions and identify the right actors. These actors would then be, for instance, civil society actors; these actors would be the economy, transnational, the media as well. I just wanted to draw your attention to this bias we have in approaching these questions. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you. Thank you very much for our students.

Coffee break

Magda Vašáryová
Please be so kind to take your seats. I want to start punctually because we have a very short break between the end of our session and the beginning of the multireligious assembly in the cathedral. I am opening the discussion, and the first in the array is Mr Kovalyov. Please...

Serguey Kovalyov
In this part of our session we are speaking about The New Partners of Globalisation, be they passive or active, be they subjects or objects. I would like to understand what Dr Kissinger said about naivety. Please, explain to me what is “globalisation”. Maybe I don’t understand the term properly. I think it should be something like an entry to some kind of system, and I’m asking what kind of system? What are we going to say about the new partners? Maybe we should first start speaking about the old partners? It is obvious that in this global system, in this world community, there must be a diversity of national cultures, religious cultures, and so on. Yes, that’s right, but there will also have to be certain common, general rules of the game, and I’m asking: are there such rules of the game?
For instance, the most important instrument of the world’s population is the United Nations. Do you think that the United Nations is in compliance with the idea of globalisation? We know the way the United Nations solves certain problems. They solve them by voting and maybe not even by voting, but rather by backstage discussions: if you vote for this resolution, we’ll vote for that. So, this is the way the deals are made because the United Nations comprises representatives of individual states and they want to defend their narrow, egoistic national interests. There is nobody who would defend the interest of law, since there are no supra-national bodies.
Another question to my distinguished neighbour. I don’t know whether I understood properly. Did you say that the Jihad is a reaction to McDonald restaurants? Is that the fact? Is it really true that McDonald’s appeared earlier, before the concept of Jihad? Yes, a Muslim population in Europe does exist, and Muslims do live in Europe and they should have rights; and they should have the possibility of applying the right to speak and to study in their own language, in connection with their culture; and girls should be able to wear scarves if they wish so.
But the matter at stake is the following: if somebody prevents them from doing so, it will be done in connection with the European concept of the protection of human rights, or against this concept; and, I think it’s going to be against this concept because the basic principle of the European concept of human rights rests on the following: you can do whatever you want if you do not violate the freedom of another person. So, this girl is wearing the scarf on her own head and if somebody dares to prevent her from doing so, then it is that person who is violating the concept of human rights, or individual rights. It is in this context that I would like to ask on what these other concepts, non-European concepts of rights are based. And how do they want to enrich our own concept of human rights? How do they want to enrich the new members of globalisation, what can Islamic culture contribute, what can the Hindu culture contribute to what is lacking in the European concept of law? In other words, what is not included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? I would be very grateful if somebody would give me a specific answer to this. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you very much. Mr Etzioni...

Amitai Etzioni
Dr Kissinger is not here to answer the last speaker, and he didn’t authorise me to speak for him, but in the spirit of dialogue I would suggest that countries who want to rely on the United Nations for the defence of their borders, from a Saddam or a Hitler, should not ask to join NATO, but should ask to join the United Nations.
Now, as to our subject, I would like to share with you a true story which doesn’t come from some extreme, left-wing newspaper but from the Wall Street Journal, which helps me to think about the issues of globalisation.
It is a true story about a truck-driver who is part of a “just in time” system and so he rushes from the Los Angeles area to the Boston area to deliver certain fish, so the restaurant will not have to close, and he’s on the road most holidays and weekends and, of course, the rest of the week as well. His wife decides that, since she never sees him, she’ll sell her home and move into the cabin of the truck with him. They have a long mattress there, and she shares the driving with him. Of course, in the process, they’ve lost their friends and their neighbours, they shop and eat in truck stops, but usually they don’t have time to eat so they take their food and eat it in the truck. They have a six-year-old daughter, whom they asked a neighbour to watch, but they call her often on the telephone. He takes pills in the morning to wake up, and then pills in the evening to sleep, and he’s one of our most dangerous drivers: we have a lot of accidents with our trucks. Now, he makes a lot of money, so for me he has become a symbol of what McWorld means when we talk about surrendering to economic forces without limitations. This is a person who, I think by any standards, is efficient, maybe not in terms of public safety, but he’s sacrificing all that is considered human and social and redeeming for his income. So, I believe that the lesson to learn from this story is that each society needs to work out its own balance between increasing GNP and other values.
Just to give you a quick example: every time I go to Germany, I hear people complain that workers want to stay in their communities, that they don’t live by the canons of economics and move around as the economists would like them to. I think they’re making a very viable choice. They prefer to stay in the place where they grew up, where the graves of their families are, where their friends are, where their children can go to school safely. I don’t think this is such an inferior choice to buying consumer goods.
Now, does the United States live up to what we preach to other countries? We never had, and do not have now, a kind of “free market” we’re selling to other countries. Until very recently, we had import limitations on cars – it was called voluntary, but we threatened to make a law because of it – we still have a trigger price on imported steel, we have a multi-fibre agreement with import limits on textiles. Try to open a restaurant, a kiosk or a gas station in the United States without a government permit and you’d be in big trouble – and, by the way, try to bring an apple or an orange into the United States and see what happens to you. So, in short, we choose our own balance between regulations and borders and such.
Now, the question is: what is this vision that we hold up to the world? What is this good society we are aspiring to? If it’s going to look like an American suburb, then let me tell you that our suburbanites are not happy, they’re not happy people. There’s a lot of drug use, a lot of alcoholism, a lot of suicides, and a lot of tension. So, we need to think about a different vision to hold up to the world and, again, I don’t want to take the time now, but here is just one suggestion for affluent societies. I’m not suggesting that poor countries should stay in their poverty and enjoy it, but I’m arguing that there’s a limit to the joy people can get from ever more consumer goods.
Let me just close with one other thing: each culture has its own idiosyncrasies and all the time we’re taught to buy more. One of the things Americans, not all of them I hope, feel they have to have on their lawn is plastic pink pelicans and I want to assure you that one can live many happy years without plastic pink pelicans on your front lawn. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you very much. Mr Tu...

Weiming Tu
Thank you. Let me begin with a very short historical note.
There have been quite a few moments in human history when local culture became globally significant. Just look at the spread of Buddhism, the spread of Christianity, or the spread of Islam. But the globalisation we are now witnessing is also a long historical process. We used to talk about “Westernisation” and then, in the 1950s and 1960s, we talked about “modernisation”, and now we use the term “globalisation”. While in the 1960s the modernisation thesis was promoted, in North America in particular, there was a strong belief that modernisation meant homogenisation; but now, when we’re confronted with globalisation, if not a consensus, an overwhelming majority of people believe that it is not homogenisation. What does this mean?
It means that we’re serious about cultural empowerment. We need to take into consideration the continuous presence of traditions in modernity, or the continuous presence of primordial ties. For lack of time, I will just list some of the things I think should be part of the agenda for discussion: ethnicity, gender, language, land, class (in terms of the north and south), also age and faith.
For a number of years, scholars in North America have been advocating modernisation, now globalisation, believing that this process was so powerful that the cultural differences in developing countries would eventually be overwhelmed, or overcome. But, now that we know the seriousness of ethnicity in America; we know the importance of gender all throughout the world; we know the conflict of language in Canada or Belgium; we know the sovereignty issue is not just a question for the Palestinians, but Hawaiians, or Native Americans; the north-south problem is not simply, in the global context, regional, national, or sometimes even local. And the age issue: we used to think about a generation in terms of 30 years – then we knew that there was an age gap, a generation gap in terms of 10 years. Now, when I’m teaching at a university, you see the gap between the seniors and freshmen, and that kind of a widening of the generation gap is of serious concern. We used to worry about inter-religious conflict, now we also worry about intra-religious conflict.
Now, these may put all the primordial ties in a negative light; but I would like to submit that, in fact, the new vision of globalisation has to be linked to these forms of localisation. We do not have a choice, we do not have a choice of either globalisation or localisation, it is for both an “and” proposition. If we can think globally in terms of these major mega-trends, if we do not take into consideration all the primordial ties I just outlined, then the cultural empowerment will be very difficult to achieve. It is in this context, I think, that the challenge to the Forum 2000 is not simply globalisation narrowly defined in terms of a market economy, democratic polity or individualism, but how these global trends interact in a continuous way with local conditions. And, if we do not do that, I think the sense of urgency will be lost. Thank you.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you very much, Mr Tu. I will give the floor to Mr Singh, who will react...

Karan Singh
I very strongly support what the last speaker has said, and I mentioned it in my speech also that pluralism has to be built into the globalisation process; it cannot be a homogenisation. I think the point was made by one of the earlier speakers, the question of identity. I think all of us now, in the global society, have multiple identities. The idea that we have just the one identity is out-moded, old-fashioned, and no longer relevant.
For example, let me take my own case. I have an identity as a Dogri (you have never heard of the word), a small ethnic group in India. It’s important for me because that is my ethnic identity; I have an identity as a Hindu, that is my religious identity. I have an identity as an Indian, that is my national identity. I have an identity as an environmentalist that links me to environmentalists around the world. I have an identity as an “inter-faith” person, Chairman of the Temple of Understanding that links me to other people. I have a global identity.
So, these are multiple identities. That is why I ended my speech with this question of the “inner centre”. If we can revolve these multiple identities around our inner core, in the form of concentric circles, then it doesn’t matter how many circles you have. In fact, the more circles you have, the more active and positive a participant you will be in the globalisation process. However, if the centre shifts, you then become eccentric, you then become neurotic, then you’re torn between your identity as a Muslim or as an Indian, or your identity as a Hindu or a global citizen. So, I think we have to re-learn this.
There is no reason why we should have only one language. I can speak five languages and I’m quite happy in any of them. There’s no reason why you should have only one religion. If I go to Rome, I wouldn’t dream of leaving it without going to St Peter’s and paying my respects there. Why should we limit ourselves? I think what globalisation involves is a creative expansion of our identity, and if we can once get that theory clear, then perhaps a lot of our other problems will fall into place. Thank you very much.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you. Mrs Suchocka wants to answer Mr Kovalyov.

Hanna Suchocka
Mr Kovalyov has really asked a lot of questions, and I think that you asked so many questions that they could set the agenda for debate for many years to come, because you asked the question: who are the new “partners”, and what are the relationships between the old and the new partners? Thus, we now have to analyse and react to the old partners as well.
In my opinion, I hold the rather common view that when we have to deal with only an international organisation like the United Nations, this is not “globalisation”, because globalisation means going deeper into society. The United Nations is an international organisation with a universal character. So, it is not a typical age-old partner of globalisation. In my opinion, the media is the real partner of globalisation because it reaches all spheres of human behaviour. For that reason, I think that the question has been put very correctly, because we have to open our discussion to the question: who are the real “partners” of globalisation?
Of course, I have tried to touch on some of these partners and, in my opinion, political leaders are partners of globalisation, and the family is a partner of globalisation, as is the media, and I repeat this because I see the really dominant role of the media in our lives. It becomes not only a powerful force, but sometimes the most powerful force in a contest of powers. For that reason, we have to determine what the new relations are between the partners who have played a role in the political state, but in a completely different way. From this point of view, I think that it is completely different to vote in international organisations and to act in a globalised world. And, as you know, now we also have new social phenomena such as McDonald’s, which has been mentioned here many times. I know such situations, when someone who comes from Poland to a foreign country finds that the only familiar institution in that country is McDonald’s, which is really well known. It is a real, new phenomenon of globalisation. So, we have to recognise this and we have to answer the question of how to deal with such phenomena in the contemporary world. I am not against globalisation, but we have to know that it has completely changed our culture.

Magda Vašáryová
Professor Musil, please...

Jiří Musil
Can I add, Mrs Suchocká, a few other important examples to your list? I fully agree, and the idea of a global or an international civil society is behind what I want to say. You can add universities as partners in the globalisation, definitely, and please don’t be surprised that I mention a very prosaic phenomenon, sport clubs. We underestimate, for example, the networking of sports, an extremely interesting phenomenon. I’m not talking about the games where the national team of the Czech Republic fights with Norway, but I’m talking about clubs, etc., and you can add a lot of such examples. I’m very glad that you mentioned it. We are, in fact, moving slowly in the direction of a new type of network and “actors”.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you very much, and now Professor Kolakowski.

Leszek Kolakowski
I have a short comment to what Mr Kumar said and about McDonald’s. A friend of mine, an old Polish Jew who lives in London, told me once: “You know what, I would prefer to get rid of my ‘Jewishness’ because those Jews, they irritate me so much.” What happened? She said: “They set up a McDonald’s restaurant in Jerusalem, a rabbi came there, and said: ‘that’s worse than Hitler’.” Now, when a Jew, who survived the war, is told that a McDonald’s restaurant is worse than Hitler, he becomes nervous. But this rabbi was not completely crazy. After all, he knew that the Jews had survived for centuries thanks to their religious rituals and language preserved in sheitls and they want to be not only Israelis, but Jews, and one cannot condemn it. So, this is an extreme example because McDonald’s is resisted.
Nevertheless, we should understand what this is about. The point is that there are degrees, so to say, of possible assimilation, at least for the time being. When the Poles or the Croatians, say, settle in Germany or in America, their children will be ‘Germanised’ or ‘Americanised’ easily. But, it’s not the same with Turks in Germany, or with Algerians in France. They form cultural enclaves of their own, and they don’t want to get rid of their religious, ethnic and linguistic identities. One may say, well, after all, various cultures, various ethnic groups can co-exist peacefully on the same territory: they don’t need to be at war and we have many examples of it. After all, Holland, the old Commonwealth of Holland was a multinational territory where Poles, Lithuanians Jews, Germans, Ukrainians lived together and there were, of course, many social conflicts but not necessarily of the national kind. Well, that’s perfectly true, but the point is that three circumstances have changed.
The problem of immigration in the last decades. First of all, previously the immigration process occurred on a significant scale, lasting centuries. Now you can move from any place in the world to any other within a day or two: that’s a very important change. The other change is the “welfare state”: the state is supposed to take care of its citizens, and it is natural that it cannot absorb as many people as they might wish. The third is the sheer density of population. So, everything has changed. Moreover, despite the pious wishes of the 19th century socialists and liberals who expected that national problems would soon go away with globalisation of civilisation, the opposite has happened, for reasons which we don’t have no time to discuss now. In spite of those hopes, a national or ethnic awareness grew stronger, more radical and more militant than it used to be. We might deplore all this, of course, but we cannot simply cause those factors to go away by pious incantations if we are in favour of tolerance, and so on. Unfortunately, we have to face the situation as it is, as Dr Kissinger argued that financial globalisation is not the same as political globalisation. There is such a thing as sovereign states defending their interests. Therefore, we cannot be satisfied with repeating our noble slogans. We have to face this unpleasant reality, and if you ask me about practical advice, I would be in trouble: yes, I have to admit it.

Magda Vašáryová
Mr Shariff Abdullah...

Shariff M. Abdullah
Thank you, I have a couple of very short comments and then a question for my friend, Mr Singh, in terms of one of his comments. First, I want to caution us: I hear us using one word and meaning vastly different things by it. I think it’s going to be very important for us to figure out what it is we mean by globalisation. You know, we’re the seven blind men around this elephant, each one of us holding on to a different body part and, if we’re not careful, we could wind up agreeing with each other and meaning vastly different things in that agreement.
I was listed in the materials here as a critic of globalisation. I want to say: I’m all in favour of it, my definition of it, which I’ll try to convince all of you to accept. But, if we’re talking about a globalisation that is another word for colonialism, if we’re talking about a globalisation that is a green light for global corporatism, then I’m not in favour of that. And I think that we need to start looking at what are the root meanings of the term.
Now, the question I have is this. You indicated in your talk that the United Nations needs to radically reconstitute itself. It hinted at some of the things that President Havel talked about in his questions, before he had to leave, as to whether or not the European Union deserves as many seats on the Security Council that it has. Is it possible, do you think that it’s possible, for the United Nations to do that re-constitution? Another way of rephrasing the question: do you think that a state is going to give up its privileged position of having a seat on the Security Council for the sake of world unity?

Karan Singh
It seems to me that to expect someone to give up a seat is unrealistic. But it is not unrealistic to expect an expansion of the permanent members of the Security Council so as to bring in other nations and other civilisations. That is the road I think enlightened self-interest should encourage the dominant powers to adopt.

Magda Vašáryová
Mr Sükösd...

Miklós Sükösd
Thank you. If you allow, I would like to go back to the original title of our full day’s activities, which is Current Political Systems and Patterns of Governance in Different Parts of the World and in the World as a Whole, in other words, it’s about global governance. I would like to raise three sets of issues: one about the UN, the reform of the UN and global governance; the second about the globalisation of science and technology, and the possibility of global science and technology policy; and the third about population policy, maybe at the global level.
Let me start with global political institutions and UN reform by bringing an example from the area of the environment. Today, there are about 1,000 international agreements about the environment, but how to monitor the compliance with these agreements remains to be solved; it remains a problem. How can the countries that break environmental agreements be effectively sanctioned? Could this role be performed by the United Nations alone? And what are the alternatives, the different options, for the reform of the UN? Is it only the expansion of the Security Council, or is it a new kind of decision mechanism within the Council? How can we make the UN less bureaucratic, quicker, a more effective, more decisive global governance regime? In fact, when we are talking about a more focused and centralised global management system, and global governance system, are we, in fact, that far from talking about global government?
It’s in the back of my mind, and I’m sure that many people feel the same way, and it should be explicitly discussed, in my view. Would, in fact, our reform proposals reach the level of global government and, if yes, how should its policies be selected? How should its officers be elected? How could it be made democratic? How could it be made transparent? How could world citizens, planetary citizens, participate in world government in a democratic way? What are the avenues for participation? Would they elect representatives? Should we have regular global elections like for the European Union, transnational elections that take place? This is a set of questions about the United Nations and global government.
The second is short: it’s about technology. We all know the debates about nuclear research and warfare, chemical warfare, biological research and biological warfare and the capacity of the UN to control it and the conflicts around this. But there are cutting-edge technologies that may also have truly global effects, through environmental change and other ways. I have in mind genetic engineering, biotechnology, cloning of animals, cloning of humans, the “Human Genome Project” in which computerised mapping of human genes is taking place. These are deep problems and we should raise the question of how transnational agencies could introduce some kind of policy, some kind of regulation into these areas.
Finally, a question about population growth, as several participants to it. The population of the Earth is about six billion people, soon it will be seven and it’s an exponential growth. How could population growth be controlled in a humane fashion, in a fashion that’s in line with our concept of human rights, which is an off-shoot of the European enlightenment? How could population growth control be adjusted to the individual choices and family choices over having children? I am addressing this question particularly to our fellow participants from India and China. I’m sorry for not being able to offer answers, just questions, but I thought in this strange way I could contribute to the discussion.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you, Mr Sükösd. Please, Mr Kumar, you have the floor.

Krishan Kumar
I just want to respond very briefly to what Professor Kolakowski just said. He made two points. One was that the new kind of immigration into Europe is different from earlier waves of immigration partly because of the rapidity with which it has occurred, and more importantly because it has occurred within the context of the welfare state, where citizens are making demands of a welfare kind on the state, and this poses a new problem: for the state to absorb lots of newcomers. And the second point had to do with the persistence of nationalism and ethnic conflicts.
If I could deal very rapidly with the first, it seems clear to me that the state is, in fact, divesting itself of many of its welfare functions everywhere in the world now, East and West. The welfare state seems to have been a model that was very important for 25 years or so after the war but, increasingly, welfare functions are being performed privately or voluntarily and I think there may be a slight mis-analogical thinking here. The situation of most immigrant communities in Europe is not like that of blacks in the American inner cities who are often an “under-class,” they are often part of a dependency group; most immigrant communities in Europe, in fact, don’t depend on the welfare state very much. They have taken charge of their own welfare, and they prefer that. I mean in education, in religion, in most areas they have actually been self-running, as groups, and they don’t make demands on the welfare state in a particular way; in fact, they do so rather less than their fellow citizens. So, I don’t think the fact that the welfare state was the context of the original immigration move is going to be very important in the future.
The second point was about the persistence of nationalism against all the hopes of 19th century liberals and socialists. Isn’t it the case that the reason why nationalism and ethnicity continues to be so strong is because the nation-state is the only legitimate actor currently on the world stage, in other words the only model that groups can aspire to for achieving some kind of self-running of their lives because they’re forced into the mould of the nation-state? You know, Kosovan Albanians will have to try and join up with Albania in the end, because that’s probably the only way they’ll find a solution to their problem. We don’t accept the models of non-national citizenship sufficiently well, the concepts are not well defined, the institutions don’t exist very much, and so nationalism and the creation of the nation-state becomes the only goal of this kind, regrettably. I think it’s a false goal for them to follow, but I can see why they all say: if we’re a people, we must have a state.

Magda Vašáryová
Ivan Gabal...

Ivan Gabal
My question is for the three of you sitting on the panel because, as far as I understand, all of you went through certain experiences with the government. Let me ask, when talking about a “global governance”, which means relations of states, do you feel for your country, with your experience, a country like Slovakia, India or Poland, that your country is more an “actor” or “subject” and why.

Karan Singh
I’d like to respond briefly to Mr Sükösd’s questions. Mr Sükösd, the questions you have raised represent a full agenda for Forum 1999, so I am afraid that it is totally impossible to begin to answer... except to say that: yes, some kind of global governance is ultimately, I think, the goal. How should it develop? If you remember, Tennyson had a marvellous line: The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. Ultimately, as idealists and utopians, we have to envisage a situation in which enough sanity dawns on the human race to be able to realise that when you look at Earth from outer space you do not see the divisions of nationality or race or culture or sex, you see one unit. Ultimately, there are only two irreducible units: one is planet Earth, the other is the human individual. Everything else in between is relative.
Now, how long will it take? After all, the nation-state, the Westphalian model, is only 400 years old. Before that there were tribal states, and if you were to have told the tribal states that one day they’d disappear and the nation-state would come into existence, they wouldn’t have believed you. Similarly, today, the nation-state seems to be so well entrenched that any thought that the nation-state might wither away would be a shock to many people, but I feel, by the end of the next century, the nation-state may well have withered away – and perhaps the withering away of the nation-state is the way for absolution and salvation for the human race. That is my personal belief – we may not live to see it.
Now, the other point about science and technology and population policy. I was India’s minister for population for four years, one of the two most difficult jobs in the world. I can speak at length about that, but I am not going to, except to say that one of the problems – and I think we should talk freely at this Forum – was that certain religions are against population control – I am talking specifically about Roman Catholicism and Islam. That is a problem we faced because, when the Hindus started taking to it in a big way, the feeling was that we were taking to it and these groups were not taking to it. There has been this old history in India, the country was partitioned on the basis of religion and so that did and does create problems, perhaps not so much in China, but in India where we have the second largest Muslim population in the world. We have more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan, and they are Indian citizens with full rights. That does raise a problem that needs to be addressed at some point in time.
So, to answer your question, sir, I would definitely say that India is not a subject, I think my country has been an actor for thousands of years and we have made a major contribution towards world civilisation. In science, for example, the zero comes from India. Everybody talks about intellectual property rights, so I said once: If everybody were to give me one dime whenever they used the zero, which we invented in India, I’d be quite happy for you to have the rest of the intellectual property rights. Similarly printing: every time you print a word, give one dime to China. So, you know, the idea that all enlightenment and all development took place in the West is totally wrong: it’s a distorted idea. The basis of human civilisation was laid in the great civilisations of India and China and, therefore, there’s no question of our being subjects. We are actors and we will increasingly be actors in the years to come. Thank you.

Hanna Suchocka
Thank you so much. Now, I’d like to answer your question concerning Actors or Subjects. You know, for that reason, I tried to change the title, as Mr Kumar noticed, to Objects or Subjects because I was of the opinion that it was really very difficult for me to differentiate between Actors and Subjects because it is necessary to play an active role. So, in my opinion, should we be passive as “object” or active and be “subject.” So, for that reason I think that Poland, at the moment, is at the beginning of its road towards globalisation and we can choose a direct way and good instruments to be “subject”, to play an active role and not only to be “object”. For that reason, I think that it’s really important to make an agenda, and I really appreciate that it’s an agenda for next year, an agenda concerning globalisation with many issues we only touched upon during today’s meeting. I think that it could help all our countries to play a more active role, taking into account all of our peculiarities, traditions and heritage. It would be very important to be a real “actor” or “subject” in globalisation and not only an “object”.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you, Mrs Suchocka. I could give a little time to Martin Bútora, my colleague from the Slovak Republic, only on one condition, that he could make a better closing speech than me.

Martin Bútora
Well, this is not a final speech, just a very brief remark. I do not believe we are able to outline, to develop a very clear and coherent concept of globalisation, and that’s my comment to my colleague. I am sure we will sooner or later arrive at this stage about globalisation, but it as diverse as the concepts of nationalism. There is not only one concept of nationalism, there are a whole diverse variety of nationalisms in history and in the current period. It certainly sounds different for affluent populations and for poor populations; it sounds different for urban populations and for those living in villages. And when Mr Kumar mentions the relatively well organised Muslim communities in Europe, the Turkish one in Germany, and the Algerian in France, it sounds definitely different for the vast majority of Romany/Gypsies communities who do not really feel as if they are actors in globalisation. Now, if this is correct, then we can speak rather about the structures, about the contexts, about the honouring of values and about the different and diverse impacts of globalisation, and I think this is what this conference is about.

Magda Vašáryová
Thank you very much. Because we want to be on time for the Multireligious Assembly in the Cathedral, I want to close this session. Except for globalisation we have heard one very important word today, and that is responsibility. The individual and the group, or state, responsibility. Here we are not able to answer the question: what is the future of globalisation? What are all the aspects of globalisation? But we raised many questions and it was very interesting for me.
Speaking about minorities, I want to mention one minority: handicapped people. I am working with them and I want to say that the new technology and new systems of communication are contributing to opening ways for all handicapped people and this minority, handicapped people, is one part of our population that could be very successful with the new technologies.
On behalf of all non-governmental organisations in the Slovak Republic, I was very happy to hear about the role of the sub-national and non-governmental organisations and the responsibility of all these organisations, and to hear about the new word in globalisation, of the global world.
I think that the organisers asked me to lead the discussion because it was about subjects and actors. Yes, I spent many years as an actor so I could understand what it means. It’s a mixture between being passive and active. So, I should tell you now, please now be a little passive and allow yourselves to be driven to your hotels so you can change your clothes and go to the Multireligious Assembly. Thank you very much.