What is? Globalisation

• Corruption… • Education…. • Globalisation… • Government… • Happiness… • a Human Being… • Love… • the Media… • a Monk… • Responsibility… • Social Values… • a ‘Soi-Dog’… • Spirituality… • ‘Thainess’… • World Peace… • World Peace (II)… • Where would you choose to live?… • Would you die for love?… •

‘JJ’ Jeremy Johanson

Abhisit Vejjajiva

Leader – Democratic Party

“Globalisation is a process that makes the world increasingly borderless because of the ability of technology to allow us to communicate, exchange, trade, and do everything across borders much more conveniently and at lower costs than in the past. The indication obviously being that countries, economies and societies are linked together and are more interdependent than ever before. It creates real opportunities in terms of prosperity, and even in terms of peace. But just like free markets, there are also failures. So there needs to be a good system of monitoring and checking any forces that could be detrimental to individuals or societies. It is not a foregone conclusion whether or not globalisation would be beneficial or not. It’s up to the ability of the global community to come to grips with it, to preserve their identities, take advantage of the opportunities it creates, and set up a good system of monitoring to look after potential damages. Thailand and its people have proven to be very flexible and able to adapt to changing circumstances. This has been seen very much throughout our history. Our ability to absorb influences and even cultures from outside is also very well known. Ironically in a way, that means that our ability to do this is part of our identity and culture also. So there has been an increasing degree of westernisation, obviously because the more powerful countries are able to exert more influence with globalisation. But on the other hand, it’s very much in the nature of Thai people and society to absorb outside influences and even makes some of the things our own. Despite the material progress and gains, there is no guarantee that people are actually happier. The reason obviously being that there is increased competition and pressure. Economic well-being comes with a cost concerning non-economic matters. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that if you could measure the level of happiness, maybe it hasn’t changed that much. It’s up to the global community to deal effectively with the changes. The best thing is to prepare our people to allow them to be people who are able to learn, and adopt and make use of any changes.”

Shirin Ebadi

2003 Nobel Peace Laureate

“The current format of globalisation is the alliance between the financial capitals of the world to have more leverage. And we all know that financial capital is only interested in multiplying itself. This is making the poor poorer. However, globalisation has become an inevitable phenomenon of this world and nobody can stop it from happening. But we could direct it into proper way, to be practiced in a proper way. Globalisation will be the right thing to do when justice becomes globalised. Is it relevant to talk about globalisation when millions and millions of our children are deprived of education because of poverty, and who don’t have access to clean drinkable water? It is also irrelevant when we have had many wars where people have been killed and houses have been looted, with the plunder going to countries in the industrialized world, in the hands of a few. We’re living in a world where 18% of the population, in many countries, lives with under 1$ a day. So as globalisation continues on its current path, it’s only for the benefit of the rich. It’s because of this I have a lot of respect for the World Social Forum which takes place every year. People – journalists, intellectuals – participate in the World Social Forum, and they are spreading the word.”

Paul M. Martin

Managing Director – MP&A

“Globalisation is the increasing participation in trade, in every country. It means that international trade occupies a bigger and bigger share of the world’s economy. So instead of people buying goods produced in their own villages, cities or provinces, they now tend to buy foreign products. Sometimes they are aware of it and sometimes they are not because they just buy brands that they like. This is an increasing phenomenon because of peaceful relationships between states. For the past 30 years, conditions for trade, especially in terms of communication, have benefited governments. So they thought they should increase trade with one another, and the population did not oppose it. Over the past 20 years there were a lot of ideas about people losing out to big business. So globalisation created a lot of social tension. There was a lot of truth, and a lot of imagination. But no one can contest the fact that globalisation is increasing. In Thailand alone, exports have benefited a lot, contributing to economic growth. But when you start to give rational arguments about who benefits from trade, you see first of all that you have more and more economic growth that comes from trade accompanied by rising standards of living. But, just like individuals, corporations and governments can be bad. So globalisation needs to be fair, not allowing monopolies to grow to the detriment of competition, without the abuse of power. But this is not unique to globalisation.”

Chris Swift

Artist

“The concept of globalization is almost always espoused by leaders of powerful western countries. To me it’s a trick to make people, usually from less developed countries, do things that you want them to do. Usually this ends up meaning that the powerful countries take advantage of the other countries of the world. Culture is also exported, where other countries are obliged to it adhere to the rules of the denominating culture. But this is nothing new. Humans, going as far back as can be remembered, have always wanted to make the other tribe do what they wanted them to do. In the beginning, they had big bones to hit others with. The only thing that has changed is the toys and tools that are used to implement power. This goes from nuclear weapons to economic power, using psychological tools that are wielded through advertising and media manipulation to the vast majority of people. This takes place according to the ‘herd theory’. If we look at 99% of the people and the 1% that control them, that 1% must gain power over and control the ‘workers’ to make the ‘widgets’ that make the owner’s rich. Widgets can be anything from legal documents to toys, the opium of the people. Keep them diddled and messed-up so that they keep quiet. Primarily, this is happening extensively throughout developed Western society, designing the traditional educational system to make good workers and wage slaves, who pay attention and follow orders. It’s only names that change with a whole new vocabulary using ‘globalization’ rather than ‘dominance’, ‘imperialism’ or ‘colonization’.”