The intentions of that movement were good: to fight the rapacious exploitation of the world’s resources and people by increasingly powerful corporations, governments and transnational entities like the IMF. However, the processes underlying the growth and reach of the exploiters have also, for instance, fed the development of global environmental organisations and understanding. The ant-globalisation movement was itself, ironically, global in scale and arose out of a global awareness. It all points to a particular transformation of humanity and the planet in our time.
Our species, Homo sapiens, ventured out from its cradle in the great rift valley of East Africa about 100,000 years ago. For thousands of years thereafter, humanity was in a state of dispersion as we spread to most parts of the globe. Separate cultures, languages and physical features formed in adaptation to particular environments and out of the social dynamics of specific human groups. Communication between groups, trade and cross-fertilization of cultures occurred mainly at local and regional levels.
The reversal of the process of dispersion – of humanity drawing back together – began in the 16th century when Spain, Portugal and Holland, followed by France and England, took to the seas during the so-called “Age of Expansion”. The colonial empires they built were global in breadth: cultures from different sides of the world came to be continuously in contact with each other. European power was entrenched through the control of vast new trade routes in natural resources and slaves, and European hegemony was eventually established everywhere – often at the point of a gun. European explorers finally “discovered” and mapped the entire globe.
In our time the process of global convergence is well advanced. Events that occur at one end of the world can have immediate effects everywhere; communication between people shoots instantaneously around the globe; financial systems tie all countries together; political and economic leaders meet to decide global protocols and directions. The result is an emerging planetary “culture” with particular vision and sets of values. Following the historical dominance of the great European powers, this culture is essentially Western in outlook and underpinned by ideas of continuous economic innovation and expansion. However, as can be seen in the rise of worldwide movements for the environment and Indigenous rights, planetary priorities are up for contest. There is no certainty what the global culture will be, say in 100 years’ time, particularly given the volatility of a rapidly increasing human population, scarce resources and the dire realities of climate change. There are also the tensions that occur between local cultures – with their own histories, views and directions – and the overarching global worldview. We can see this, for instance, in the current political struggles in the Middle East as the more globalised democratic impulses clash with older, tribal and authoritarian local traditions.
We are living in a remarkable phase of the Earth’s history. It seems to me that the template for our time needs to be “unity”, that the challenge in the process of global convergence or globalisation is to create systems that nurture and affirm life. The older, fragmented vision of self-interest, of identifying purely with one’s own needs and that of one’s immediate others, has to give way to a much bigger self, the global self. The difficulty is, of course, that the old ways are deeply entrenched in the systems and societies that we have created, and it may be that they will only be transformed by global-scale catastrophe. The nascent world spirit is developing at the edge of a cliff.
In his book Re-enchantment, Australian thinker David Tacey describes the emerging spirituality in our time as moving from an older “either/or” worldview to one of “both-and”. He says: “At the stage of post-enlightenment, life can be understood by way of paradox and complexity.” To me, this holds something important: “both-and” means we include the needs of the individual, the local and the particular with the needs of the planet overall (as in the slogan, “act local, think global”) and what is created out of that is a new life or new phase for the Earth.
I believe we are ultimately agents for and within something bigger than ourselves, that the period of globalisation is not simply happening by blind chance. Humans are an expression of the magnificence of the planet and our journey of self-discovery is very much that of the Earth. That’s why we carry an enormous responsibility of acting with its highest interests at heart, something that we are only just learning to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment