Such is the title of an international youth conference organized by the Council of Europe and held in Strasbourg
The words globalization and antiglobalists have long dominated news reports across the world. Here and there one hears of meetings and rallies of people concerned about the total unification of human values and blurring of borders between peoples and cultures. Yet, analytical studies suggest that the man in the street in Ukraine, much like the one in Europe, has little or no idea of the essence of globalization, its pros and cons. For this reason, the Youth Directorate at the Council of Europe has decided to explain to the young people, activists of nongovernmental organizations, the essence of this phenomenon, so that they could spread this knowledge in their home countries.
The conference was held on the premises of the Council of Europe and European Parliament and was almost timed to coincide with the accession of the ten new members to the EU. Thus, the conference participants, who arrived from all corners of the world — from Columbia and Brazil to Nepal and the Far East — could have a closer look at the EU policy toward its new members and neighbors.
The following is a summary of everything heard and seen at the conference.
EU enlargement is also a tactical move in response to the challenges of an increasingly global world, where accelerated interaction among the economies and cutthroat competition necessitate the creation of clubs of those with common economic interests. The pervasive promotion and hype of the slogan about the purported cultural and historical unification of Old Europe only disguises the hidden motives for enlargement, namely to survive under conditions of a new race and rivalry among the superpowers of the world economy, the US, Japan, and Europe. The latter’s countries would otherwise have a hard time competing with such monsters single-handedly. Further proof of the more pragmatic rather than cultural and historical motives behind the unification is the fact that Europe does not mind keeping company with the countries of Africa and Asia (Morocco, Turkey), which have a more confident and solid foothold in Europe’s markets than its post-Soviet neighbors.
This grouping process is inevitable, for accelerated flows of capitals, information, and technologies result in growing economic cooperation. This inevitably leads to the distribution of labor among countries, its aim being to ensure solid and stable development and increase efficiency. Today it does not pay anymore to manufacture highly-marketable and science-intensive products within one country, since while you create the infrastructure and launch the production cycle, your rivals will use the existing capacities, thus saving time and money. Borders become obstacles to unimpeded and quick commodity turnover, since when computer displays are manufactured, say, in the Netherlands and the remaining hardware in Germany, it is not difficult to picture the scope of the resulting turnover of goods and services. Under such conditions, every customs barrier could cause millions in losses. Thus, countries attempt to globalize their manufacturing cycles, opening their borders to allow a free turnover of goods and services along with free movement of workforce. Simultaneously, constant migration picks up pace as people move from country to country in search of a better life.
A human rights workgroup that met as part of the conference displayed a placard depicting migrants with an inscription, “We set out in hope of finding heaven, but are living our last days in hell.” Illegal migrants remain the biggest headache for European commissioners. The fact is, countries overflowing with illegal migrants have two parallel system functioning, namely an official and a shadow one. Illegal migrants in the EU become victims of criminals and are often forced into slavery. This is especially true of women, who often end up as sex slaves. The global world still knows of cases of blatant violations of human rights and freedoms.
A problematic aspect of globalization is the fact that in the modern world the abyss between the rich and poor countries is becoming wider and deeper. Poor countries are unable to fit into this global distribution of labor functions and therefore act as raw materials appendages, which is also a kind of distribution of niches in the world economy. These countries are gradually ousted from the competitive market by players of a greater caliber such as transnational companies. Declining costs of transferring information and technologies result in the growing number of transnational companies, which continue to branch out and oust the smaller national companies. This, on the one hand, causes a unification of standards for goods and services in the world and, on the other hand, reduces competition among companies at a stage when transnational corporations gain full control of the markets.
Yet, globalization is not only an economic phenomenon. The widely publicized protest rallies of antiglobalists are often aimed against the unification of cultures and tastes. Thus, as one speaker told the conference, it feels strange to see a Thai restaurant amidst the ice and boundless snows of Greenland. Many are protesting the dominance of other cultures and the fact that people become cosmopolites. Yet, on the other hand, globalization also results from the interaction of cultures, while the two processes cannot be isolated anymore.
