A WIDE CANVAS
GLOBALISATION: FURTHER THOUGHTS
Conquest of territories, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, spread of Enlightenment ideas, the ideas of Revolution following the Age of Reason, Colonialism and Imperialism, the revolution in Science and its spread in the world, Capitalism and Communism- all these represent globalisation-even if that expression is a recent usage. They all are attempts at establishing some sort of a universal ideal all over the world: either the supremacy of some temporal power, or some other standard. But there are significant differences among them.
The ancient empires of the world were indeed extensive- but they did not represent any attempt at forced uniformity of thinking or lifestyles. For instance, we find significant differences even within the Greek world- Athens , Sparta and Macedonia were so different from each other! The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire before its conversion to Christianity allowed various religious and cultural practices to flourish side by side. Religious or cultural intolerance was largely unknown in the ancient world. Sure, people had their ideas of cultural superiority but it did not degenerate into persecution of others. At the most they avoided contact with those whom they considered inferior. In fact such people were called "barbarians"- but it did not signify anything derogatory, as it does today. Likewise, our own word "Mlechcha" indicates someone outside our cultural ambiance, some one different, not necessarily inferior. The old empires did not stamp out variety.
Buddhism is a real marvel. It is totally other-worldly, stressing renunciation! King after Kshatriya king in India embraced it! But they did not force conversion on others. No doubt monks tried to enlist support and enlarge their base- but it was not through violence. And there was an inner contradiction: the religion was based on Monks and their order, and it did not seek to regulate social life.This had also weakened the society as the best elements were drawn to the monastic ideal and order. In the end, this proved its undoing as it could not survive once the Muslim hordes killed the monks in their thousands and destroyed their Sangha. This is the reason it disappeared from India. But by then, it had established its hold in other parts of Asia- purely on the basis of the work of the missionary monks, entirely through non-violent means, without armed conquest. Hu Shih, former ambassador of China to USA said:
India conquered and dominated China culturally for twenty centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.India's strength has always been its ideas, and never has it dipped its hand in the neighbours' blood.
In contrast, all the other ideas of world domination-be they religious or economic ideology- aim at imposing one way of life and thinking on all, snuffing out variety in all ways and areas. Communism, Capitalism and secular science are monotheistic, monolithic and monopolistic, no less than Christianity and Islam. eg. Capitalism imposes money and market as the central values of life.
Christianity started as a religion of austerity and inner purity. In fact, if we go by the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, he emerges as another Buddha: the ideas he expressed were not a logical extension of old Jewish thoughts, but completely alien. Consider some of the statements of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament:
- I and my Father are One. John 10.30
- If you have known me, you would have known the Father also. John 14.7
-He who has seen me has seen the Father. John 14.9
- My kingdom is not of this world.
But my kingdom is from another place.John.18.36
- Render unto Caesar things that are Caesar's, and unto God things that are God's. Mark 12.17
-Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up the cross daily and follow me. Matthew 16.24, Luke 9.23
-Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6.34
-If thou will be perfect, go and sell your belongings and give to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come, and follow me. Matthew 19.21
As any one can easily see, Jesus is advising austerity, charity and renunciation. He is not aiming to establish his rule on earth.He is advising his followers to obey the authorities and discharge their obligation to them. He is not promising that if you believe in him and join some church, you will have a second car, third TV set, new career, fast rise, unbounded worldy riches- as the modern evangelical voices shout from a hundred platforms. Organised Christianity is nothing but a movement for global hegemony. It is politics in disguise.
Baptism of prince Vladimir. painting 1890
Public domain, Wikimedia commons.
In this respect, Islam is open. From the beginning it has made no secret of its intention to establish Islamic rule on earth, convert the whole world into an Islamic enterprise: Dar al Islam or Dar as Salam. There are plenty of passages in the Qaran which specifically speak of warfare. Scholars both among the Muslims and Christians are divided on the nature of the warfare sanctioned- whether it is for self-defence or for aggression. There seem to be four kinds of sactioned warfare: two with non-Muslims and two among Muslims themselves, as under, (following Reuven Firestone):
- against idolaters and infidels,pagans
- against those who resist or refuse to pay the poll tax
- against those who are Muslims in name or appearance, but do not follow the tenets
- against Muslims who oppress other Muslims.
If we study the history of Islam in the last 1300 years all over the world, we can easily see that Muslims have always marched on other countries in the name of their religion and established it wherever they went. There is not a single passage in the Quran which asks Muslims to submit to other rulers and live peacefully under them, along with others.
Last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in Id procession.
From the British Museum.
Observers have noted 4 phases in the Muslim expansion in the modern day.
- be peaceful, gain acceptance and tolerance first.
- get concessions, bit by bit; claim human or minority rights.
- take control, and take over.
- eliminate the infidels and heretics.
All these four stages can be seen in operation in different parts of the world right now. The first stage is seen when Muslims go to other countries as refugees. The second and third stages are seen in Europe and US, where the Muslims have already gained control of some areas and some institutions. In England, they are already speaking of 'Londonistan' and there are many Muslim localities in European countries where they have their own parallel law, and the regular police dare not enter. What is happening to Hindu , Sikh and Buddhist minorities, and diverse Muslim groups themselves in Pakistan and Bangladesh represents the fourth stage.All those with eyes open and minds sound can observe these for themselves.Our mainline newspapers are whitewashing these, but huge resources are availabe on the Web.
A map showing how the higher birth rates among the Muslims of Europe vis a vis the native Europeans are silently contributing to the Islamisation of Europe.
MichaelYoussef.com
There are some who point to the Sufis as the benevolent face of Islam. This is pure self-deception. The Sufis are also staunch followers of Islam. In fact they act as the advance column of the army, following the first tactics: act as peaceful, gentle people, mix with the people, prepare them slowly for the mass conversion later! Every Sufi in India has acted in this way. Philip Jenkins noted in an article in boston.com on January 25, 2009:
Sufis are the power that has made Islam the second-largest religion in the world........Sufis have through the centuries combined their inward quest with defence and expansion of Islam worldwide....ascetic Sufis have always been in the vanguard of Islam.
Fanatical dervish warriors were the special forces of every Islamic army from the 13th century through the end of the 19th.
This is the point we all have to remember: all sects and groups of Islam are expansionist. No group advocates living peacefully with other religions for ever.
Communism also was a strong globalistic movement, aiming to establish global hegemony by revolution. It too adopted tactics similar to the one noted above.At its height, it drew strength from Moscow, and Peking,doing the role of Rome,Mecca and Medina, with Lenin and Stalin and Mao acting as the Popes. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has lost force. However, people with Communist orientation are still entrenched in the educational establishments, administration, etc. In fact, Marxist analysis is now one of the established literary theories in the Western academia, along with Freudian theories. In India, our history and social studies are still taught according to Marxist interpretations!
One important characteristic shared by Christianity, Islam and Marxism are intolerance of dissent and difference. They eradicate previous history and culture. Christians under Constantine and later emperors persecuted the so called Pagans, vandalised and looted their temples.Between 390 and 395 AD, Christianity established itself as the only religion.Religions other than what "the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans" were banned,and their worship outlawed on penalty of death. All temples were ordered closed, and all non- Christian books were ordered to be burnt. Edward Gibbon has dealt with these matters in his classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Cult statue of Augustus disfigured with a cross on the forehead. "By QuartierLatin1968 (Own work) [GFDL(http:://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)CCBY-SA 3.0 http:://Creative Commons.org/licenses by-sa/3.0/)
via Wikimedia Commons.
"See page for author [GFDL http:://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)CC BY-SA. 3.0(http:://Creative commons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/via Wikimedia commons"
The Muslims destroyed everything belonging to the previous cultures wherever they went.
Bamiyan Buddha-before and after destruction by the Taliban.
By Buddha_Bamiyan_ 1963jpg:UNESCO/A Lezine;Tsui de wikipedia via Wikimedia commons.
They destroyed numerous temples in India. In 1193, Mohammad Bakhtiar Khilji attacked and completely destroyed Nalanda.1n 1565 Vijaynagar was sacked and destroyed. For Muslims political conquest invariably leads to the total eradication of the earlier culture.
The modern secular versions of globalisation- science and economic systems- are also aiming at such total domination by one set of values, one view of life and one style of life on all, in all parts of the globe. And the whole power gets centralised in one international centre. Universities become captives of groups, which perpetuate their hold through various means, such as selection of teachers, approval of thesis, extension of patronage, etc. All dissent is stamped out. If you join Jawaharal Nehru University and study history, you have no freedom but to subscribe to what leftists like Romila Thapar teach as the gospel.If you go to Chicago and study comparative religion, you will have to chant with Wendy Doniger that Kali is a blood-thirsty goddess.All this in the name of freedom of thought.And nearer home, a newspaper like TOI or The Hindu will not publish articles critical of their leftist advocacy- in the name of freedom of expression. Yes, one is always free to express what THEY- the editors like!
We take international bodies like the IMF and World Bank to consist of professionals who take decisions after free discussion and mature thought. But what happens is totally different.
....especially at the International Monetary Fund. Decisions were made on the basis of what seemed a curious blend of ideology and bad economics,dogma that sometimes seemed to be thinly veiling special interests.....Rarely did I see thoughtful discussions and analyses of consequences of alternative policies. There was a single prescription. Alternative opinions were not sought. Open, frank discussion was discouraged- there was no room for it. Ideology guided policy prescription and countries were expected to follow IMF guidelines without debate.
....hypocrisy of pretending to help developing countries by forcing them to open up their markets to the goods of advanced industrial countries while keeping their own markets protected, policies that make the rich richer and the poor more impoverished...
Globalization today is not working for many of the world's poor. It is not working for much of the environment. It is not working for the stability of the global economy.
Development is not about helping a few people get rich or creating a handful of pointless protected industries that only benefit the country's elite; it is not about bringing Prada and Benetton, Ralph Lauren or Louis Vuitton, for the urban rich and leaving the rural poor in their misery. Being able to buy Gucchi handbags in Moscow department stores did not mean that country had become a market economy.
From: Joseph Stiglitz: Globalization And Its Discontents. Penguin, 2002.But for millions of people globalization has not worked. Many have actually been made worse off, as they have seen their jobs destroyed and their lives become more insecure. They have felt increasingly powerless against forces beyond their control. They have seen....their cultures eroded.
"By File: Joseph E.Stiglitz jpg: Government of Thailand derivative work.LK( file : Joseph E.Stiglitz jpg)CC BY 3.0(http:://creative commons.orglicenses/by/3.0via Wikimedia Commons."
What globalisation is doing is to impose one set of values, standards of measurement and assessment on the whole world- impose the standards of the West. However,
Contemporary Western society seems confused about values in general and about the relationship between the market values and social values in particular.
...there is one factor at play that makes the present different from earlier times: the spread of market values that give precedence to self-interest over the common interest. ....With morality in decline, market values have penetrated into areas of society that were previously governed by nonmarket considerations.These ...areas include personal relations,politics and professions such as law and medicine. Moreover, there has been a subtle and gradual but neverthelss profound transformation in the way the market mechanism operates. First, lasting relationships have been replaced by individual transactions....national economies have been superseded by an international eonomy, but the international community, insofar as it exists, shares few social values.
From: George Soros: Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism.Viva Books Private Ltd, 2004.
George Soros at the 47th Munich Security Conference, 2011.
Harald Detterborn [CC BY 3.0de (http:://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/deed.en)]
What is happening in the name of globalisation is the imposition of Market Fundamentalism. Which in turn means that companies rule societies, and dictate to govts. Govts work for companies, and companies work for their profits! Companies work for their own profits; they do not aim to promote employment, for instance- they employ people to make profit.They will not hesitate to downsize the workforce, if they can make more profits thereby! This is actually happening! Where markets replace civic society, money displaces morality, and private profit drives away public purpose, whose 'development' do they promote?
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