The links below feature articles about globalisation.

Globalisation as the New Context for Mission

The recent Columban General Assembly in Sydney concluded that globalisation identifies the new context for mission. There is a lot to be said for this but there is also the danger that it might prove disabling, sapping enthusiasm for mission, because of the difficulty of getting a handle on where mission and globalisation intersect.

The term globalisation, one of the big ideas at the end of the 20th century, is in danger of becoming one of the big clichés of the 21st century. The term got some dramatic publicity during the violent protests surrounding the recent world trade conferences in Seattle, Prague, Ottawa and in a series of May-day protests. Anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism are used interchangeably. TV sound bites declared that the protesters were drawing attention to the terrible social ills being inflicted by economic globalisation on the weak players in the global marketplace. Globalisation has been demonised, and the clarion call has gone out for legions of St Georges who will try to slay the dragon.

However, a simplistic focus on the negative impact of economic globalisation can easily distort our understanding of the dynamics of the world in which we are living as well as the missionary vocation in it. Our willingness to engage in Prophetic denunciation must be balanced by (if not actually follow) the difficult exercise in Wisdom, as suggested by Timothy Radcliffe (Columban Intercom May 2001). Globalisation cannot be reduced to economic globalisation. Furthermore, the positive meaning which we missionaries normally give to phrases like "Catholic Church," "universal mission," and "think globally and act locally," indicate that we ourselves have already been part of some kind of globalisation process.

Terms like globalisation and its stepfather, postmodernism, have emerged as new currency in the effort to name the present, to identify who/what is now making the world go round. Many people are exasperated by the rapid and chaotic change in the modern world. This experience is nicely captured by the story of a peasant resting under a tree who saw a rider galloping at breakneck speed through the village. When he shouted to the rider "Where are you going in such a hurry" the response that was carried back on the wind was "Don't ask me, ask the horse."

When we try to name the present, try to identify the major movements shaping our world, we discover contradictory trends. On the one hand, there is a definite tendency towards universalization or integration. Political and economic organisations are merging into bigger blocks (EU, NAFTA, OPEC, transnational corporations) with new centres of power (Brussels, New York, Geneva). Consumer fashions in clothes (Hard Rock Cafe T-shirts; United Colors of Benneton), sports shoes (Nike), and food (MacDonald's, KFC) seem to indicate that a monoculture is on the point of killing off traditional cultural variety. International architectural style, news sources (CNN, BBC, Sky), the Internet, Visa cards, the English language all make it easy to assume that we all "enjoy" the same experience of a single world.

On the other hand, however, there are many countervailing trends which indicate a distinct preference for localisation or differentiation. In spite of the apparent globalized monotony of everything, there is, at the same time, a fresh urge to celebrate ethnic identity -- ethnic food, ethnic music, ethnic spirituality. Even more fundamentally, different groups claim the right to make distinctive interpretations of values which we in the West defined as universal, for example, Islamic human rights, Korean democracy. An important aspect of the debates surrounding postmodernism and globalisation is the way in which they have inspired many people to unearth victims' stories which were buried underneath the standard stories and histories of the victors. Increasingly there is a shift of political energy into special interest movements and lobbies dealing with a big variety of issues such as the environment, gender, native peoples.

What role do all these play in influencing how the modern world goes round? In trying to name the present, we cannot easily label the goodies and baddies, calling the localising forces good and the globalising forces evil. After all, one of the most powerful engines of consumerism is late capitalism's ability to do niche marketing using ethnic and other cultural symbols to appeal to different lifestyles of consumer.

Globalisation is a process which is transforming the spatial organization of social relations and transactions. It is a natural outcome of the logic of modernity beginning in the late 17th century. Gradually, through improved communications and standardized ways of calculating time, distance, weights and measures, money, etc., there has emerged a consciousness that we all belong to one world and share the same space. What is unique at the present time is the scale and the intensity of world-wide interconnections resulting in what is called time-space compression. The world feels smaller, and events in one place have an impact "in no time" on people thousands of miles away. For those who are strategically placed to take advantage of the opportunities for travel or investment, all this feels exhilarating, pregnant with the possibilities. But the flip side is that globalisation is a very uneven process. A phrase like global village sounds naively cosy. Everywhere village suggests intimacy, caring, camaraderie and goodwill but for many people the experience of the global village is an experience of alienation and exclusion from most of the benefits and prosperity associated with globalisation.

Globalisation is an accordion-like concept (Richard Schweder). In its most contracted sense it refers to the linking of the world economies, to the removal of all barriers to trade, investment, finance (and migrant labour?). But hidden within this contracted accordion is a far wider agenda incorporating ideas about how countries must shape up in order to be allowed to play in the new economy. This wider agenda consists not simply of a few generous tips for reorganising lagging economies ("structural adjustments"), it also includes pushing cultural and moral adjustments. Globalisation is not merely an economic concept but is, crucially, a cultural crusade as well. People like Bill Clinton who have pushed globalisation with missionary zeal believe that "the West is best" and that other regions of the world ("the rest") must either Westernise or remain poor, wretched, and morally backward. The 21st century "white man's burden" is to make enlightened moral and cultural interventions into other countries' ways of life in order to free them from their supposed barbarisms, superstitions, and irrationalities-- from their traditional attitudes to individualism, community, gender, work, and family life.

If a new generation of missionaries want to focus their energy on opposing economic globalisation, they must realise that they will not be able to stand outside the globalisation process. They are already enmeshed in it. The Catholic Church's missionary outreach, like human rights activity of various sorts, involves a form of transnational integration and it shares many features with the profit-driven globalisation from above. Strategic action on the part of missionaries and NGOs requires widespread linkups which the Internet and e-mail and cheap travel can provide. Missionary campaigning and networking is globalisation from below. To learn how to be in it but not of it demands that we be able to weave the Prophetic and the Wisdom trajectories into a convincing vision.

Sean Dwan