Globalization; a contested Concept and it’s Cultural dimension.

Globalization is a complex phenomenon. It is a very vivid, diverse and volatile one also. Understanding and defining the term and concept is a tough job. But everybody tried and defined it in their own way. I am testing the contestation regarding the concept and the semiotic meaning of globalization in first part .In second part I am going to discuss some of the features and debates regarding the cultural dimension of the globalization. Although it is not connected one ,but on the basis of two issues one can hold certain ideas and parallel hold certain imagination on the issues. In first part of my argument I made my logics after taking a cue from the image of certain statement made by Osama Bin Laden on  2001. In second part I am going to featurise the cultural angle of globalization which basically flows in four major ways.

Globalization is a contested concept. It has multi dimensions, Spectrums and also with complexities. Generally people who think and hold discussion on Globalization are going to generalize it. It may be traditional thinkers or factual presenters, left, right, center or even  liberalist’s for that matter. Up-to post modernist’s, Globalization is seen as a theoretical, academic and methodological pre-requisite and a perception. Everybody understood it in their own way and method. It may be termed as highly ideological or even deconstructive one. But as far as my understanding is concern the notion and process as Globalization is a contested, contemplating issue. Everybody has their own logic to define the idea as Globalization. The people who speaks on behalf of and also people opposes the material expression of Globalization also defines the semiotic meaning and features of it, after setting certain standard’s of their own. I am crystal clear here that , a consummate, clear, engaging and rigorous treatment of the debates that define Globalization is not so easy, but a herculean task. One can do this job only after making a prolonged, detailed homework. One has to perceive the Idea and empirical notion as Globalization as a process rather a product, and one must acknowledge the process as a space and time bounded, a historical and even a very-very complex one. Otherwise the story and experience as Globalization would remain elusive without real life examples capable of breathing shape, color, and sound into a vague concept that had become the buzzword of our-time. So in defining the sense and sensibility of Globalization we can witness the urgency from layman who speak on Globalization and also from academic and intellectual side and sphere. So my emphasize is made  on the way of deconstruction. Scholar’s who already dealt with the notion of ‘multidimensionality’    appears as an important attribute of Globalization in our own definition; still it requires further elaboration. The Ancient Buddhist parable of the blind scholar’s and their encounter with the elephant helps to illustrate the nature of the academic controversy over the various dimensions and definitions of Globalization. Even some scholars argue that economic processes, some political, some cultural or ideological aspects are the core of the Globalization. Like the parable, each scholar is partly right by correctly or not exactly identifying one important dimension of the phenomenon in question, but their collective mistakes lie in their dogmatic attempts to reduce such a complex phenomenon as Globalization to a single domain that corresponds to their own expertise.

            Another very important debate in the field of Globalization is, Globalization is an idea and material reality germinated out of American social processes and even of capitalism, the expansion of such idea into second world, and even over the third world is known as Globalization. They entertain Noam Chomsky and his views of confronting American Imperialism with the ideas like manufacturing consent and others which is related to capitalism, and its nexus as Imperialism and Neo-Imperialism. This particular view is much popular, elitistic and sometime clinges with academics and activism too. I think this view looks very attractive, same-while carries its own limitation. It is again a kind of a partial truth, bears with an ideology.

            In October 7, 2001 Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden made a videotaped statement condemning the activities of ‘International infidels’, and video had been brought out by a Qatar based television media Al Zazira. He also spread his attacks over United States of America for bombing campaign against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Although Bin Laden and his men’s were hiding in a remote place; obviously they processed the hi-tech equipment needed to record the statement. It means the whole outfit enjoyed all the access to the sophisticated information and telecommunication networks that kept them informed in real time of relevant international developments. Bin Laden may have denounced the forces of modernity with great conviction, but the smooth operation of his entire organization was entirely dependent on advanced forms of technology developed in the last two decades of the 20^th century. After making its way from the secluded mountains of eastern Afghanistan to the capital city of Kabul, the Videotape was dropped off by an unknown courier outside the local office of Al Jajeera, company. That message heard and seen by the billions of TV viewers around the Globe. Al Jajeera had been launched only five years earlier as a state financed Arabic language news channel for limited programming. Before the establishment of Al-Jajeera, there was no cutting edge TV journalism did not exist in Arab world. Within only three years, however Al-Jajeera became very dominant in Middle east, after using European and American space technology. Around 2001, Al-Jajeera intensified it’s global reach when its chief executives signed a lucrative co-operation agreement with CNN owned by AOL Time Warner of U.S.A. The broadcasts also reached five continents. When the war declared on Afghanistan then Al-Jajeera positioned itself as a truly global player; with the other leader of contemporary media like BBC, ABC and Reuters. Then the BBC and its American network partner CNBC together launched a joint initiative of Arabic language business news channel. Al-Jajeera also uploaded the Bin Laden’s video into it’s website, that was quickly attracted an international audience, as its daily hit count skyrocketed to over seven million.

            There can be no doubt that it was the existence of this chain of Global interdependencies and interconnections that made possible the instant broadcast of Bin Laden’s speech to a Global audience. At the same time, however it must be emphasized that even those voices that oppose modernity cannot extricate themselves from the very process of Globalization they so decry. In order to spread their message and recruit new sympathizers, anti-modernizers must utilize the tools provided by the Globalization. This obvious truth was visible even in Bin Laden’s personal appearance. The tape shows that he was wearing contemporary military fatigue over traditional Arab garments. In other words, his dress reflects the contemporary processes of fragmentation and cross fertilization that Globalization scholars call ‘hybridization’- the mixing of different cultural forms and styles facilitated by global economic and cultural exchanges. In fact, the pale colors of Bin Laden’s mottled combat dress betrayed its Russian origin’s, suggesting that he wore the Jacket as a symbolic reminder of the fierce guerilla war waged by him and other Islamic militants against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan during the 1980’s. His ever present AK-47 Kalashnikov’s, too was probably made in Russia, although dozens of gun factories around the world have been building this popular assault rifle for over 40 years. By the mid 1990’s more than 70 million Kalashnikovs had been manufactured in Russia and abroad. At least 50 national armies include such rifles in their arsenal, making Kalashnikov’s truly weapons of global choice. Thus Bin Laden’s AK-47 could have come from anywhere in the World. However given the astonishing globalization of organized crime during the last two decades, it is quite conceivable that Bin Laden’s rifle was part of an illegal arms deal hatched and executed by such powerful international criminal organizations such as Al-Qaeda and Russian Mafia. It is also possible that the rifle arrived in Afghanistan by means of an underground arms trade similar to the one that surfaced in May 1996, when police in San Francisco seized 2000 illegally imported AK-47s manufactured in China.

            A close look at Bin Laden’s right wrist reveals yet another thing due to the powerful dynamics of Globalization. As he directs his words of contempt for the United States and its allies at his hand held microphone, his retreating sleeve exposes a stylish sports watch. Journalists who notice this expensive accessory have speculated about the origins of the time piece in question. The emerging consensus points to a Timex product. However given that Timex watches are as American as Apple pie, it seems rather ironic that the Al-Qaeda leader should have chosen this particular chronometer. After all Timex Corporation, originally the Waterbury Clock Company was founded in the 1850’s in Connecticut’s Navgatuck Valley, known throughout 19^th century as the ‘Switzerland of America’. Today the company has gone multinational, maintaining close relations to affiliated businesses and sales offices in 65 countries. The corporation employs 7,500 employees, located on four continents. Thousands of workers mostly from low-wage countries in the global south constitute the driving force behind Timex’s global production processes.

            Above brief deconstruction of some of the central images on the Videotape makes it easier to understand why the seemingly anachronistic images of an anti modern terrorist in-front of an Afghan cave do, in-fact capture some essential dynamics of Globalization. Indeed the tensions between the forces of particularism and those of universalism have reached unprecedented levels only because interdependencies that connect the local to the global have been growing faster than at any time in History. The rise of International terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda represents but one of the many manifestations of Globalization. Just as Bin Laden’s romantic ideology of a ‘pure Islam’ is itself the result of the modern imagination, so has our global age with it’s obsession for technology and its mass-market commodities indelibly shaped the violent backlash against globalization.

The deconstruction of Osama bin laden has provided us with a real life example of the intricate and sometimes contradictory social dynamics of globalization. We are now in a better position to tackle the rather demanding task of assembling a working definition of globalization that brings some analytical precision to a contested concept that has proven to be notoriously hard to pin down. This act urges the definition of the globalization in a greater deal.

The term globalization should be used to refer to a set of social processes that are thought to transform our present social condition into one globality. One of the very interesting  definition given by Manfred B. Steger is, “globalization refers to a multidimensional set of social processes that create, multiply, stretch, and intensify worldwide  social interdependencies and exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of deepening connections between the local and the distant”. Above definition somehow gives the diverse semiotic meaning and scope of the concept of globalization up-to certain extent.

Second very essential issue on which I am going to throw light is ‘cultural dimension of globalization’. As earlier I said globalization has many facets and every dimension and angles are valid. For Scholar’s like Fredric Jameson, Masao Miyoshi, John Tomlinson, Benjamin Barber, Serge Latouche, George Ritzer, Francis Fukuyama, Thomas Friedman, Arjun Appadurai, Ulf Hannerz, Ronald Robertson, Robet.W.Mc Chesnay, Edword S. Herman, David Demers and Hillary French, the cultural phase of globalization is very important. These scholars also separately dealt with the various aspects of cultural globalization like food, dress, media, cinema, art, coca-cola, rock ‘n’ roll, jeans, language, football, music, ecology etc.

Cultural globalization refers to the intensification and expansion of cultural flows across the globe. Obviously, culture is a very broad, vague and volatile concept; it is frequently used to describe the whole of human experience. Cultural, means again we are concerned with the symbolic construction, articulation, and dissemination of meaning. Given that, language, music, images constitute the symbolic expression, they assume special significance in the sphere of culture. Although cultural practices lie at the very heart of contemporary globalization, yet cultural globalization did not start with the worldwide dissemination of rock ‘n’ roll, coca-cola, or football. They had a longer history and older than modernity. Still the volume of cultural transmissions in the contemporary period have for exceeded those of earlier.

Very important thematic landscape elements in cultural globalization are four; one; the tension between sameness and difference in emerging global culture, two; crucial role of transnational  media corporations in disseminating popular culture, three; the globalization of languages and fourth ;the impact of materialistic and consumerist values on our planet’s ecological systems.

We are witnessing the rise of an increasingly homogenized popular culture underwritten by a western culture industry based in New York, Hollywood, London, and Milan. As evidence for their interpretation, these commentators point to Amazonian Indians wearing Nike training shoes, Denizens of the Southern Sahara purchasing Texaco baseball caps, and Palestinian Youths proudly displaying their Chicago Bulls Sweatshirts in downtown Ramallah. Referring to the diffusion of Anglo- American values and consumer goods as the Americanization of the world. There have been serious attempts by some countries to resists these forces of cultural imperialism, for example a ban on satellite dishes in Iran, and the French imposition of tariffs and quotas on imported film and television – the spread of American popular culture seems to be unstoppable.

American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term ‘Mc-Donaldization’ to describe the wide ranging socio-cultural processes by which the principles of the fast restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as the rest of the world. Mc-Donaldization of the world amounts to the imposition of uniform standards that eclipse human creativity and de humanize social relations.

 Benjamin Barber warns the people of the world against the cultural imperialism of what he calls McWorld-a soulless consumer capitalism that is rapidly transforming the world’s diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. For Barber, Mc Word is a product of a superficial American popular culture assembled in the 1950’s and 1960’s, driven by expansionist commercial interests. Music, video, theatre, books, and theme parks all constructed as American image exports that create common tastes around common logos, advertising slogans, stars, songs, brand names, jingles and trademarks. McWorld provoke cultural and political resistance in the form of Jihad the parochial impulse to rivet and ripel the homogenizing forces of the west wherever they can be found. Jihad draws on the furies of religious fundamentalism and ethno-nationalism which constitute the dark side of cultural particularism. Barber asserts that both forces means Jihad and Mc World work are against a participatory form of democracy, for they are equally prone to undermine civil liberties’ and thus thwart the possibility of a global democratic future. They also threaten cultural diversity existing on our  planet. Sociologist Ronald Robertson, for example , contends that global cultural flows often reinvigorate local cultural niches, and propounds a theory known as “Glocalization’’ with positive aspects. Cultural globalization has contributed to a remarkable shift in people’s consciousness. In fact it appears that the old structures of modernity are slowly giving way to a new post modern framework characterized by a less stable sense of identity and knowledge.

  To a large extent global cultural flows of our time are generated and directed by global media empires that rely on powerful communication technologies to spread their message. Saturating global cultural reality with formulaic TV shows and mindless advertisements, these co-operations increasingly shape peoples identities and the structure of desires around the world. TV programs turn into a global gossip markets, presenting viewers and readers of all ages with the vacuous details of the private lives of American celebrities like Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kobe Bryant. The media also creates a kind of ‘Global Oligopoly’ that is similar to oil and other lucrative Industries. TV advertisement volume in the USA has increased from 360 billion dollar in 1970 to 50-44 billion dollar  in 1999. Values disseminated by transnational media enterprise secure not only the undisputed cultural hegemony of popular culture, but also lead to the de-politicization of social reality and the weakening of civic, social bonds too.

One direct method of measuring and evaluating cultural changes brought by globalization is to study of shifting global pattern of language use. The globalization of languages can be viewed as a process by which some languages are increasingly used in international communication while others lose their prominence and even disappear for lake of speakers. Growing  global significance of a few languages- particularly English, Chinese, Spanish, and French- and the declining number of other languages around the world is a clear example of this. Power of Anglo- American cultural industry to make English the global lingua- franca of the 21^st century. Spread of English began with colonialism of 16^th century, at that time approximately 7 million people used English as their mother tongue, but by 1990’s  number went to 350 million. Today 80% of the content of the internet is in English only. All most half of the growing population of the world’s growing population of foreign students are enrolled at institutions in Anglo- American countries. At the same time, however the number of spoken languages in the word has dropped from about 14,500 in 1500 A.D to less than 7,000 in 2000A.D.Given the current rate of decline some Linguist’s predict that 50 to 90% of the currently existing languages will have disappeared by the end of the 21’st Century.

People view there natural environment depends to a great extent on their cultural milieu. Every religions of the world emphasized on the interdependence of the all living beings with the nature. But the globalization , and the USA dominated meaning of culture industry seeks to convince its global audience that the meaning and chief value of life can be found in the limitless accumulation of material possessions. Uncontrolled population and lavish consumption  patterns in the global North contributing to the global environmental de-gradation. Humans are now the most numerous mammals on earth. Vastly increased demands for food, timber, fiber have put severe pressure on the planet’s eco-systems. This new type of destructive consumerist pattern undoubtedly brought by the globalization which is out of USA and Europe. Today large areas of the earth’s surface, especially  in arid and semi- arid regions, have nearly ceased to be biologically productive. Global impact of the humans on the environment is as much a function of per capita consumption as it is of overall population size. Human induced climate change such as global warming represents in the form of ecological problems like green house gas emissions like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous and sulphur-oxides and CFC’s. This greatly enhanced earth’s capacity to trap heat. This resulted to partial meltdown of the polar ice caps, causing global sea level to rise by up to 90 centimeters by 2100, a catastrophic development that would threaten the many coastal regions around the world.

So we need to address and define and find the meaning of the globalization in a greater detailed way. We need spatial temporal contexts and historical and material background and many more things to do this. Basically a phenomenon like globalization is very much complex and we need to address it in a careful manner with some sort of consciousness too. We should not go in a hurry and make judgements. It means we also need judgements ,but that is also in the form of reconsideration and re-testing. In this juncture we also need to redefine some of the ideological kind of assumptions made by the left ,liberals ,activists ,postmodernists and all. Cultural dimension of the globalization is also very interesting one, we need to revisit the whole area too.

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