Daily Times

There are a heap of factors which is held responsible for the failure of globalisation in its deliverance.  The ruling junta, the industrialists, the landlords, and the elites are thought to be taking the benefits out of the instantaneous flow of ideas, information, products, etc., at the cost of the miserable conditions of the poor who would rather prefer picking up the rocks to live in such conditions. It would cause the split into “us” and “them”— between the government and the citizens and  the rich and the poor. In addition to the said, some would be pointing fingers to the immigrants for the down- warding and deplorable economic milieu caused by their huge influx, and the fear of identity- loss. The others would blame the minorities, ethnicities and religious hordes for their contributions to make the economy handicap.

The mantra of globalism has awarded the developed countries-the Global North- with the malaise of unemployment as it allows for the free movement of goods and products, so, the owners-industrialists and landlords- start hankering after more and more profits which can be ensured only, in one way, with the exploitation of the cheap labours and resources of the Global South. Therefore, it results in the free movement of the products from the Global North to the Global South and thus, the developed countries are left with a huge gap that occurs between the employees and un-employees. Moreover, the rise in automation and artificial intelligence has caused the loss of many service sector jobs as in US, for instance, a handful of factory jobs have been lost to none but to robots. Thus, globalization-made opportunities are going to be disturbed by rapid technological growth.

Likewise, globalization, apart from the said, paves the way for the movement of people and is catering the public anxiety by slowly changing the racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious make-up of communities. The loss of identity is joining the economic anxieties and this is what had been clearly observed in the rise of Trump’s voters- who hailed and support the protection of safety net programs and came up with a bulk of negative views vis-a-vis racial, ethnic and religious minorities- up to 28% who were seen in the pocket of Obama in 2012. Similarly, the economic and identity insecurities are joined by the cross-border flow of people-the immigrants- in Europe. The porous nature of the borders of EU’s members is adding fuel to the said tension of identity loss. The number of foreign-born UK’s residents has surged twice from 1993 to 2015. Likewise, UK and many others of the union have welcomed a large number of foreign names  into the labour list across the union. The union is facing an tenable security crisis ahead of the huge influx of immigrants. The same homeless people are also accused of pulling the digit of employment down to the bottom on dint of their acceptability to the low-wage jobs.

Social media- a chunk of globalisation- is used in this age of globalisation to broadcast the terrorist attacks in real-time to thrive fear of the unknown. The duality of social media is found everywhere where the desired information is the sine qua non. Moreover, we are put in the category of the desired and like-minded friends as per the record of our searches and likes. Likewise, the possibility of broadness and wideness of our thinking capacity has curbed by the facility of following what we like and setting aside what we detest given to us by social media.

The technological revolution, in line with globalisation- is thought to be inimical to the developing world where the people have recently emerged from the age-old deprivation. The children in the developed world grow up with technological tools in their hands and encounter them in schools thereby they are the suitable options for the future management of the industries and factories setting aside their counterparts from the developing countries. This is how globalisation fails in its deliverance.

If we ponder over the two terms, “US” and, “Them”, then the latter refers to the immigrants aspiring of coming inside the Mexican or Central American migrants with a wish to infiltrate into US or to the immigrants of Middle East or North American Muslim refugees hoping to take shelter in many of the EU’s countries. In some other part of the world, the said two terms refer to the government and citizens while in poorer countries the term “them”  refers to the ethnic, religious or sectarian minorities: Muslims in India, China, Shia in KSA, Sunni in Iraq, Kurds in Turkey, Christians in Egypt, etc.

The same flow of information and ideas are clever if by force, are exploited and manipulated to show what the elites want and to keep off the scene what makes their loopholes public. It is all about the term censorship which is being used nakedly in today’s world: Halal Internet of Iran, disconnection of the internet in Egypt at the eve of Arab Spring by the then ruler,  Internet being the project of CIA termed by Putin, the Great Firewall and Golden Shield in China, etc.

Wrapping up the discussion, the said factors are the grounds where the globalisation has cost its unwelcome shadow. As a way forward, the social contract is termed to be a sine qua non. Technological parity, standard education, setting up a proper mechanism for the fruitful use of social media and an effective and long-standing solution to the refugee crisis is suggested to avail of the fruits of globalisation.

The writer has done his Master of Arts in English Literature & Linguistics. He can be reached at abdulsamadkhanbannu22@gmail.com