Under the title “In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture,” David Rothkop wrote in the Foreign Policy in June 22, 1997: “The gates of the world are groaning shut. From marble balconies and over the airwaves, demagogues decry new risks to ancient cultures and traditional values. Satellites, the Internet, and jumbo jets carry the contagion. To many people, ‘foreign' has become a synonym for ‘danger'. “Of course, now is not the first time in history that chants and anthems of nationalism have been heard. But the tide of nationalism sweeping the world today is unique. For it comes in reaction to a countervailing global alternative that – for the first time in history – is clearly something more than the crackpot dream of visionaries. “It is also the first time in history that virtually every individual at every level of society can sense the impact of international changes. They can see and hear it in their media, taste it in their food, and sense it in the products that they buy. Even more visceral and threatening to those who fear these changes is the growth of a global labor pool that during the next decade will absorb nearly two billion workers from emerging markets, a pool that currently includes close to one billion unemployed and under-employed workers in those markets alone. “These people will be working for a fraction of what their counterparts in developed nations earn and will be only marginally less productive. You are either someone who is threatened by this change or someone who will profit from it, but it is almost impossible to conceive of a significant group that will remain untouched by it. “ Indeed, in spite of the fact that similar wave of globalization took place in previous times, what we are seeing today is unique. The reason for this uniqueness is the unparalleled development in communication methods which makes different ideas and ways of lives reach other people faster and more easy. Hence, although globalization has economic roots, it has also very serious cultural consequences. In other words, it affects peoples' cultural identity. Globalization promotes integration and the removal of cultural barriers which cannot be accepted by some cultures that have strong religious dimension (exclusionary aspects of religion, language, and political/ideological beliefs …etc). However, the point which is always ignored, or not noticed by some peoples is that culture is not static. Far from it. Culture grows out of a systematically encouraged reverence for selected customs and habits. Defining culture, Webster's Third New International Dictionary gives the following definition: “Culture is a total pattern of human behavior and its products embodied in speech, action, and artefacts and dependent upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.” Culture has some dimensions such as language, religion, customs, values and political and legal systems. All these dimensions grow through the time. In Saudi society we can see the reaction to globalization in two different positions. There are those who see that globalization is no threat, hence asking for a full integration on the international community. Even if such integration comes at the expense of our culture and its different dimensions. On the other side, there are those who take a negative stand from globalization seeing in it a new arm for Western imperialism. Hence, they reject globalization completely. However, while the first group ignores the exclusionary aspects of culture and the impossibility of creating one homogenous international society, the second group ignores the fact that culture is a continuos growing, and that cultures need to interact and enrich each others. Hence, as Saudis, we should accept that globalization is a fact as cultural growing is also a fact. Also, the interaction with other cultures for the benefit of humanity is desirable. However, instead of the mess which we see on how to deal with globalization, four questions need to be answered: How to determine what aspect(s) of our cultures and identities are affected by globalizations and hence need specific attention? How to transform these specific aspects into development factors? How to measure and predict changes in identities and cultures? Who is to be in charge of preserving local identities? Those who know it best? Community leaders? Local institutions? Comments may be sent to [email protected] __
