Globalization Gone Awkward

Globalization in an awkward mode:

India started globalization in 1991. It opened its borders to foreign investors and its markets for foreign goods. The fortune of India changed for good. Indians were hankering for foreign goods. Foreign goods were attractive. I remember a joke. A dentist was inspecting a tooth of his patient. He saw some unusual thing stuck between the two teeth. He asked the patient, “there is some foreign object between your teeth. Do you really want me to remove it?” The moment the patient heard ‘foreign object’ he jumped from the chair and went away, though with a lot of pain.

With Globalization the Indians’ craze for foreign goods is over. Even if people go to foreign countries, they hardly bring any thing foreign. They say oh, we can get that in India. A lot of foreign companies came to India. Educated youth from middle class got jobs. Young people became engineers and went to foreign countries for work. There are far more white colour workers working in different parts of the highly developed world.

The world became one global market and an integrated production platform. Division of social labour took place across the world. There was no need for any nation to produce all it needs on its own soil. It can import goods from outside much cheaper and of unmatched quality. Countries produced goods they were best in. They use the raw material available in their country. Life became much better and luxuries came to the houses of the middleclass people.
Export import became the life line of all the economies in the world. The world cannot go back on Globalization.

But since late different wind has been blowing across the globalized world. European Economic Community began to develop cracks. Greece was toing with the idea of coming out of the European Economic Community. In UK there was a referendum on whether to remain as part of the European Economic Community or not. And the citizens of United Kingdom voted to come out of the European Economic Community. It is a matter of time and UK will sever the 40 odd years of relationship with European Economic Community.
After the election of Trump America started talking about ‘America first’. There is a big trade war between America and China.

The intensity of globalization has reflected in the manner in which Covid19 virus rapidly spread across the world. There is no country that has remained free from the impact of the virus. This deadly virus has forced the world to shut down at the fastest way, hundreds and thousands time faster than the globalization spread.

How is the world dealing with the situation? America blames China for the virus. Trump calls it ‘China virus’. America is threatening China that it would take action against China. On social media some have called it a Chinese conspiracy to destroy the economies of different countries and gain control of the world economy for itself. There are people divided along the religious lines. Israel blaming the Palestinians for spreading the virus in Israel. Pakistan is blaming Israel for the spread of virus. In India the Muslims are accused of using virus to
carry out Corona jehad on the Indians. This absurd position is only dividing the world and making the fight against Corona weak.

The world was never so divided in the recent past. There is a need for the world to unitedly wage war on the virus. But world is caught up in the blame game. If this continues in this way there will be a huge problem in the international relationship between nations and between different communities. No one will know how they would remedy the disruption of international relations and relationship between different communities.

In times of world wide crisis like this it should have stood united to fight against Covid 19. All the experts from all over the world should have come together. The UN institution like World Health Organization should have taken a lead to facilitate this process. The world has all the resources it needs to put an end of the virus. It has enough knowledge and know-how and expertise to find solution and put an end to the virus. There is already a United Nation’s institution, World Health Organization, instituted in 1948 which could have taken a lead in bringing all together.

But you see what has happened to WHO. America has blamed WHO for the crisis in America which has gone beyond its control. For America it is a matter of humiliation since the biggest economy, strongest nation has found itself in an awkward situation. America has stopped payment of their share of contribution to WHO. It is 15 percent of the WHO fund. Loosing such a large sum puts WHO in further weak spot.

It is clear that America is trying to find a scapegoat for their failure. But what choice WHO has. It is indeed in a weak position. The member nations are more powerful and WHO does not have independence visa vis the powerful nations like China or America.
China did not come out clear about Corona virus affecting their country. They did a lot of cover up operation. They were not frank about the number of people died. Now they have revised their numbers.

What comes out clearly about globalization, and even about UN institutions, is every member country tries use these solely for their selfish advantage. If it is not convenient they will undermine UN and it’s institutions.

The motive for globalization is maximizing profit. Common good and welfare of all people of all nation is totally absent from the agenda of globalization There is hardly any interest to help weaker nations or even come together to work for overall progress of all the members. Nations do not have trust in each other. China did not think she needed help from the fraternity of the nations. If WHO had independence it could have brought together the experts and put an end to the virus while it was at the initial stage in China.

Globalization does not help to create solidarity among nations and work for common good. Globalization is a fragile when it comes to its subjective role for common good is concerned.