On January last year my uncle had ordered a couch on Amazon.com, the couch was manufactured in Hongkong , put on sale in US’s largest e-commerce site, shipped from Bedfordshire UK and was received at Chennai, India. This international exchange is just one example of globalization, a process that has everything to do with geography. Economies of the world are being increasingly integrated as mobile phones and the Internet have brought people closer. The world is becoming a smaller place, thanks to the goods, which were once confined to western countries, are available across the globe today. Globalization is the buzzword of today, with writers like Thomas Friedman giving an insight of the concept globalization through his immensely popular book called ‘The world is flat’. Amid all this fuss few issues which put a big question mark in front of globalization need a close look.
Once Jimmy Carter, former US president and a Nobel laureate said “Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, and you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.” Yes indeed many countries where people are struggling to earn less than $1 per day, for them globalization is just a made up word.
Let us talk about a sector which has adversely affected by globalization, Indian jute industry once considered as strength of Indian economy has completely lost its charm. Dulal Mondol a jute farmer from the state of west Bengal says “with new plastic technology coming in from foreign counties people are replacing jute bags with cheaper plastic bags thus we are out of business”. This almost true for every other sector, take the example of agriculture, Sugar production has been affected badly due cheap Australian sugar imported by merchants. Let us see how Globalization actually acts as catalyst for destruction. Exploitation is another name of Globalization in developing countries of the world, the multinational companies enters a developing country in the name of globalization and starts exploiting contries rich natural resources . Among the natural resources petroleum, coal and water are being heavily exploited by foreign companies.
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring flammable, organic compound consisting of hydrocarbons used to provide energy all around the world. Oil wells can be drilled up to six miles into the Earth’s surface and distilled to be used as fuel oils, gasoline, kerosene, jet fuels, and diesel fuels. The largest producers of oil are countries in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia producing nearly 25 percent of the world’s total. Russia and the United States are also top producers. However, the United States and the European Union consume a great deal more than they produce.
Among these top producing nations, oil is also found and exploited in developing countries. Many of these countries, such as North African countries, have no regulations on these reserves and large corporations such as Shell and Texaco come in and completely alter their way of life. These corporations have little respect for the people of the country or the environment as they strive for economic benefit. This setup has been defined as the “resource curse” which refers to the negative relationship between growth and development outcomes among developing countries that depend on oil. For example-
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. This western African country has discovered huge deposits of oil and has subsequently drilled and used it for economic benefit. However, more bad than good has arisen from this newfound “black gold.” Poverty looms, low education remains, and poor healthcare are still problems even though this country is rich in resources. Human rights continue to be a problem in this country. Oil companies along with other multinational corporations abuse weak regulatory practices to maximize profit. The Amnesty International and Judicial Watch in the Niger Delta region has found that human suffering in the form of environmental degradation, forcible movement, extrajudicial killings, and war crimes is severely problematic in this area .
Nearly two million barrels of oil are pumped out of the Niger River’s mangroves each day. Ninety percent of the country’s export revenue comes from this source and the locals reap little benefit. Oil spills are prominent averaging three per month. These spills and ruptured pipelines destroy farmland, contaminate water, and kill aquatic life. In October 1998, one explosion from a leaked pipeline killed 700 people. Nigeria is one of the most economically backward, conflict ridden, and politically unstable countries in the world and the root cause is oil exploitation by multinational companies.
Mining
Every day we use highly advanced technology to look up the news or listen to our favorite songs on an mp3 player, but what we often do not realize is how these items were made. More often than we realize the materials needed to build products such as a cell phone or an iPod come from less than reliable sources. A large amount of the high grade minerals required to build your iPod most likely came from somewhere such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The uncontrolled flow of minerals out of the DR Congo has been occurring for years now to much international protest. Millions of lives have been lost due to these resources and most average consumers have no idea that what they are holding is directly linked to this conflict.
Thousands of people had to flee the city of Goma in the Congo because of the high amount of military forces that were sent there to gain control of the especially mineral rich area. The current war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has brought unspeakable devastation upon its people, with approximately 73,000 people dying monthly the death toll is rapidly approaching four million in three years of war. Thousands of people are displaced from their homes to make room for the militias and mining companies and they can do very little to stop it
"People have told us that they feel like they are the living dead and that their lives no longer have any value..."
-Juliette Prodhan, head of Oxfam in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Water
It is common knowledge that water is vital to human survival, livelihoods, and most forms of economic production, yet research shows that approximately 884 million people worldwide are without adequate drinking water, and 2.6 million are without proper sanitation. This problem demands attention, but the resolution is far from simple. The need for water resources to sustain communities and operate industrial centers prompts the building of dams to control and redirect the flow of water, but the social and environmental impacts of such building is detrimental. It has been estimated that 40 to 80 million people worldwide have been left without homes or livelihoods when dams cause their lands to flood, and social tensions surrounding the rights of water usage commonly erupt in conflict. For example-
Lesotho is a land locked nation surrounded on all sides by South Africa, and situated high in the mountains earning it the name “Little Kingdom in the sky”. Home to rural mountain villagers who farm and herd animals in the harsh terrain, the people of Lesotho take pride in their ability to survive in their environment. The Orange River begins in the mountains of Lesotho, providing fresh water for the communities, and fertile soil to farm along the river banks, but drastic changes are bringing an end to this way of life. Due to the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which will build a series of dams and tunnels blasted through the mountains, the mountain watersheds are being turned into lakes and flooding entire villages. The basis of the project is to provide water resources to Johannesburg, South Africa and economic stability to the people of Lesotho, but the environmental and social implications of such a project were unclear from the beginning. Communities are being forced from their lands, and placed in resettlement villages which are not sufficient for farming making it almost impossible for them to survive.
Resource exploitation in developing countries is an important issue in today’s globalized world. The social and environmental impacts of this exploitation are detrimental and too often irreversible, resulting in loss of livelihoods and increase in poverty, pollution and disease. We have seen through various cases such as Lesotho, Nigeria and Congo that though these projects are ultimately beneficial to multinational corporations and even large industrial centers within the developing country, they are also devastating to the poor villagers who pay the price of the projects.
Human Resource Exploitation
As a result of globalization, the employed workforce is made up of part time, temporary, freelance, or independent contractors and is growing. Since last ten years India remains the IT and BPO hub of the world. The big multinational companies outsourcing their work to India are now a common phenomenon. The basic idea about outsourcing is that if a firm does not specialize in a certain function which it does not consider core, it will outsource the work and therefore be able to offer better cost and quality. But in the name of outsourcing there is a huge exploitation of young educated Indians are going on. Indian workers working in BPO gets as much as six times less than their US or UK counterparts. The working hours are sometimes inhuman and on top of it there is no job security. This outsourcing phenomenon has immensely benefited foreign companies but same can’t be said about Indian workers over here.
This does not mean globalization has only harmful effects, Outsourcing has certainly increased employment opportunities and lot of technological knowhow has been transferred from one country to another. But a sustainable development is needed where both globalization and nationalism should be given equal weightage.
Cultural Changes due to Globalization
My nephew who is just 12 years old is an example of new changed India, his day starts with a burger in the morning with rock music playing at the background. This is the case with most of the young people in India whom we called “corporate executives”. The culture of Burgers, pizzas, nigh outs and rock music are replacing the idli, dosa, roti, family outings and Indian songs. One of my friends says “changes are inevitable and you have to change accordingly”
Globalization can be useful as well as can be harmful; it is up to the countries and its people how they will accept it. The solution is sustainable development, people should know what to accept and what to not. After all a combination of idli and rock music is not that bad.
