• A Less Runaway World

A Less Runaway World

We are not alone, in our Arab world, in sensing the flood of international changes to the extent that they sometimes take us by surprise and overwhelm us. All of humanity on our planet are suffering from this feeling. This gives an impression that we are living in an unstable world, but there are proposals to make the world less unstable. Our duty is to discuss these proposals; however different they may seem to the ideas to which we are accustomed.

No fair observer doubts that we are living in a world that is passing through a phase in which there is plenty of instability according to the criteria of periods in which we or our fathers lived in the past. Stability then did not mean freezing conditions as they were, rather it meant clarity of the vision of the future over the short and medium term. During the phase of national liberation from old colonialism, for example, the line of the graph of political movement was uniform and clear in its extension towards the foreseeable future, which meant political independence within a close or visible horizon. Hence plans for what came after liberation were prepared with little trouble by those concerned, and dreams of the future would rise up from the dream of the current moment, even with regard to culture which is at the top of the pyramid of human requirements.

The world was more simple in its construction, and the future was clearer, although the anxiety was not insignificant. But now, there is no doubt that the image of the future is complicated and entangled. Even the scenarios of future studies frequently fail lamentably in the tests of time, and appear to be mere rosy dreams or farcical fantasies when the time comes that was predicted for their fulfillment without any of them being fulfilled. Indeed, the opposite often came about, which had not been taken into consideration. Hence every future development has to be accompanied by an opposite conception to discuss with it, to give to it and take from it, so the picture may be closer to what is possible when the test of time attacks it by surprise. This democratic thinking about the fields of knowledge is no longer a luxury or a favor from the elite, indeed it has become a duty of this elite towards itself, and more specifically for directing its thoughts and conceptions so that they do not suffer disappointment and lose credibility.

The Fields of Knowledge Are Interrelated

The obvious example at hand that I want to talk about is the concept of globalization which has been the subject of innumerable articles, books and audio-visual talks, in our publications and our Arab media. We must acknowledge that most of these treatments have been one-sided, containing a quantity of hasty and superficial treatment and emotion. All this is motivated by fear for our identity or apprehensiveness about the intentions of the others. Hence this globalization looked like a ghoul bent on swallowing us! Although many of the reasons for fear of our identity being eroded, and much of the suspicion of the intentions of the others has a hold over me too, I believe that to close the frame on doubt and fear is to waste a possible historic opportunity to check our calculations again, not in order to please the others or to claim and pretend to be civilized, but for the sake of the Arab personality with its identity of which we are proud and which we are trying to renew, and for the sake of our interests of which naturally we are in favor. Neither the former nor the latter will be safeguarded by merely barricading ourselves with refusal and closing our eyes to hide the vision. Rather, they will both Arab identity and interests be safeguarded more if we open our eyes to the rapid changes which are going on around us, and get ready to accept what is suitable for us, which is a lot, I believe.

With this vision, I applied myself to reading Anthony Giddens' book, Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives. I confess that I did not possess this "democratic" readiness to approach the content of the book until after I had reassured myself about some of its orientations by thumbing quickly through its pages. During this I found myself stopping in front of expressions that were persuasive because they were open to numerous probabilities, like the quotation from a statement by the German social scientist Max Weber, to the effect that the world we live in today does not seem to us, nor do we feel that it is, similar to that world which thinkers predicted. Instead of taking hold of it and subjecting it increasingly to our control, it seems to be recalcitrant about submitting to it. It is a runaway world, and from this statement of Max Weber, Giddens has chosen for the title of his book to be about this runaway nature, indeed to acknowledge it, and to look towards horizons in order to restrain its recalcitrance. The new and surprising thing is that he found this restrainer in the condition of "globalization", or to be precise, the positive aspect of globalization.

This requires us to pause before the details of the book, which I would like to discuss, I do not say review, in this hasty work.

Anthony Giddens, the author of this book, has worked as the Dean of the London School of Economics, and has written and edited more than thirty books which have been translated into several of the world’s languages. Perusal of the titles of some of his writings enables us to be aware of what he represents intellectually. Among his latest writings we find The Consequences of Modernity (1989), Modernity and Self Identity (1991), Transformation of Intimacy (1992), Beyond Left and Right (1994), The Third Way the Renewal of Social Democracy (1998). (This is the subject which was widely circulated in intellectual and political circles). All these titles indicate an intellectual condition concerned with real changes in recent times. Hence he is an extremely modern thinker. One of the features of this modernity is that his interests go beyond his academic specialization to discourse with other fields of specialization which go parallel with the element of economics, the additions of science and technology and the social and cultural changes which these additions and those changes have brought about. He is a thinker who represents the interrelationship of the fields of knowledge. From here arises the source of his modernity and the breadth of the fields of knowledge in which he roams, and from here emanates the need to listen to what he says, whether we agree or disagree with him.

Giddens believes that we are living in a changing world which affects more or less all aspects of our lives. Regardless of whether this is for better or worse, we are being plunged headlong into a global system that none of us understand fully, although we all feel its effects on us.

Doubters and Radicals

The global system which Giddens means is none other than globalization. He explains - before presenting his point of view on it the two opposite extremes in attitudes towards it. The doubters as he says consider that all the talk about it is no more than foolish talk, and that whatever its benefits and effects, and the misfortunes that result from it, the world economy is no different from what is was in former times. The radicals to use his expression are people with the opposite opinion. They believe that globalization is not only an actual reality, but even that its repercussions can be perceived everywhere. They go so far as to say that these repercussions have made the world market (and its political, social and cultural consequences, naturally) more developed than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Hence it no longer pays any attention to borders, thus making nation-states lose their influence. And the politicians lose most of their ability to influence the course of events.

After showing the different attitudes towards globalization, Giddens presents his viewpoint, which is closer to that of those he calls radicals, since he considers that the world economy with all its political, social and cultural consequences as well is heading towards electronic money. Money is now digits on a computer, and this has no parallel in previous ages. By merely pressing on some buttons, more than a trillion dollars are exchanged in international currency markets. If this sum were in $100 banknotes piled on top of each other, their height would be about ten times that of the summit of Mount Everest, which is 8,848 meters.

From this extraordinary example, Giddens concludes that globalization as we are experiencing it is not only new in many of its aspects, it is also revolutionary. At this point he begins to separate himself from the radicals, whom he considered to be like the doubters, who have not understood the meaning of globalization properly, since both groups view it from its economic aspects only, whereas he sees it as a political, technological and cultural problem, in addition to it being an economic phenomenon. It is a phenomenon that has been influenced before all else by the development of communication systems, dating back only to the end of the 1960s, with the advent of the age of communications via artificial satellites, when the first commercial satellite was launched in 1969. The number of these satellites now has risen to several hundred. This has enabled the Morse code of telegraphy to announce its complete retirement in February 1999, and it has ended as a means of communication at sea. Following communications via artificial satellite, television transmission via these satellites became widespread. This brought the concept of transformation of the world into a small global village closer to people s minds in a practical way.

A Global Village or Global Plunder?

In his enthusiasm for globalization, Giddens does not hide some of its negative effects. He admits the fact that there are statistics with terrifying implications. The relative share of the poorest 20% of the world’s inhabitants in the world’s income declined from 2.3% to 1.4% between 1989 and 1998, whereas the relative share of the richest 20% rose. Giddens mentions examples with which he concludes with a modern vision of the global village which can be described as a condition of global plunder. The financial system resembles a kind of counter-colonialism.

Here Giddens could have undermined his enthusiasm for globalization, but he corrected this by emphasizing that this aspect is a one-sided view, since it considers the new phenomenon as economic globalization, and nothing else. By jumping beyond this economic globalization, which represents a kind of transitory upheaval, Giddens takes us to the heart of his positive vision of globalization, as a striving towards another, less runaway world. The old geopolitical forms have become of no avail, and there are internal changes in the entities of the nation-state, the family, work, and traditions. These entities in Giddens opinion have become shell institutions, inappropriate to achieving the aims which they exist in order to promote. He may mean that they are no longer appropriate in the light of the invasion of new changes. He refers to these changes and their effects and says that they are creating a cosmopolitan international society. We are the first generation living in the shadow of this society, whose features we can only see in a distorted form. This society is shaking the existing methods of our lives wherever we are. This at least at this moment is not a world system driven by collective human will, rather it appears in the domain of existence in a chaotic, random way affected by different worlds. It is not sable or secure, indeed it arouses concern. It is also blemished by deep splits, and many of us feel that it has fallen into the clutches of the strong and we have no power to control it. Can we impose our will on it again?

An Essential or a Transitory Change?

Giddens, who cannot deny the ambiguity of the runaway world related to some aspects of that globalization, asked himself, but hastened to answer his question as if he were replying to questions by doubters: he believes that this is possible for us. The loss of power that we are experiencing is not a sign of personal impotence, rather it reflects the impotence of our systems. We need to rebuild these systems which we have, or to create new systems, since globalization is not an accidental thing in our lives today, on the contrary it is a transformation in the essence of the circumstances of our lives.

On his way towards looking forward to a less runaway world in the shadow of globalization, and with the machinery of globalization itself, Giddens devoted a broad space to the idea of risk as one of the means of restraining its runaway nature. One example of this is the risk involved in modern methods of agriculture which must be taken in order to limit the runaway aspect resulting from insufficiency of agricultural crops with the increase in the numbers of human beings. On the one hand it has become impossible from his point of view to continue with traditional agricultural methods and feed the constant increases in the number of the world’s inhabitants. Consequently, the use of genetically engineered crops and intensive methods of agriculture has become necessary. But the scientific achievements of globalization ensure the limitation of risk through biological engineering to reduce the use of chemical pollutants in intensive agriculture. This biological engineering is one of the manifestations of the age in which we live.

A Central Expression: Democracy

From intensive agriculture the writer turned to mechanism for turning the runaway world into a less runaway world, through interaction with the flood of changes resulting from the concept of benign globalization. This is by changing forms which are no longer suitable from the writer s point of view related to traditions, women s rights, children and the family. These are all matters which require special consideration and separate treatment for each one of them in the light of our Arab culture. But there is an expression among the expressions which Giddens has included in his promises to make the world less runaway, namely democracy. It is an expression whose consideration should not be postponed, since it might indeed be a convincing nucleus for a less runaway world.

But what is the democracy that Giddens means? He believes that democracy is perhaps the strongest idea in our age, and is an arrangement that involves active competition between political parties for the reins of power.

He pauses before what he calls the apparent contradiction of democracy, namely that at a time when democracy is spreading round the world, the countries where democracy is deeply rooted and whose example the emerging democracies are supposed to imitate, are now suffering from widespread disappointment with the democratic process. The levels of trust in politicians have declined, and fewer voters go to the ballot boxes. The numbers of those who are uninterested in parliamentary politics are increasing, particularly among young people. So what hope is there that democracy in this condition can be a central means to make our runaway globalized world less runaway?

Giddens begins his defense of the importance of democracy from starting-points on which there is no disagreement, for example that despotic governments are no longer suited to the experiences of life in view of the changes of globalization, since they lack the necessary flexibility and dynamism to compete in the framework of the electronic global economy. It is no longer within the capacity of political power based on despotic control to rely on the stock of traditions. In a world that engages in effective communication, hard power, which is imposed from the top downwards, loses its authority.

This is a self-evident and convincing concept in terms of sectors of the global village, in which undemocratic regimes are still established. But what about the sectors of the deep-rooted democracies whose public is suffering from disappointment of another kind, connected with the deep-rooted performance of democracy itself

Here comes something new indeed. Western democracy itself is in need of amendments which are imposed on us by the changes of globalization. Giddens calls this required mechanism Democratizing Democracy, by deepening and making it more responsive, and more quickly responsive, to the changes of globalization, since the information environment has become more available and widespread. This requires the existence of an effective distribution of power and a transparency that it is no longer possible to deceive in view of the achievements of the communications and information revolutions. This is in addition to sponsorship of a strong civic culture and tolerance that has become one of the essentials of civilized dialogue within societies, and between nations as well, and is one of the mechanisms of healthy living in this global village of ours.

Anthony Giddens calls his book Runaway World, and added a secondary title to clarify his purpose with a question: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives. The reshaping that is hoped for is that our world should become less runaway. Does that remind us of what one of our Arab poets meant when he wrote, treat it with what was itself the disease?

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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