Globalisation

The example of the term 'Globalisation', in new terminology, is like the example of the Jilbab in garments or the example of the "Trojan Horse" in military technology. It hides that which it contains in order to conceal it from the people. Indeed globalization conceals a great deal. There is nothing more indicative of this than what took place in Beirut towards the end of 1997 when the Centre for the Study of Arab Unity, one of the leftovers of Arab nationalists, held a conference to study globalisation and determine what stance should be adopted regarding it. It seems that they saw in globalisation a contradiction and threat to the idea of nationalism. It was mentioned in the viewpoint of the call to the conference that the subject matter under discussion was: Globalisation and the way for the Arab to deal with its understanding and manifestation in the areas of economics, culture and politics. Its historical, current and future role. Of particular interest is how the United States would deal with globalisation, especially after the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War; its effect on the economy and investment in the Arab countries in addition to their cultural environment and identity. Many scholars and university professors were invited to the Conference and they contributed their understanding of globalisation and the stance that should be adopted regarding it. The local papers published briefs of the dissertation put forward by the delegates in the conference, which lasted three days. Huge differences appeared in these studies until the Conference became like a dialogue between deaf people rather than an intellectual conference. Those supervising the Conference decided to conclude it without issuing any resolutions or recommendations.

Globalisation, as a term, was coined in English and French about ten years ago. It is used, not to describe a thing as international due to its presence or manifestation in most parts of the world, but to specify that a doer or doers of an action wish to make this thing international. For example, a company would adopt a policy of production that looks at the whole world as suitable for producing its goods. Then it will carry out production in any state or states where production costs are cheaper than anywhere else. It is said the company has 'globalised' its production. Similar things are said about the other activities this company pursues when it adopts the policy of 'globalisation' in marketing and advertising its goods, searching for new commodities and developing them, employing workers, professionals or managers, or in attracting investors and financiers who would provide loans to finance the company's operations.

The first time the word "globalisation" was applied was in describing the activities of the large American companies in the mid-1980s. When Ronald Reagan became the president of the United States in 1981 he employed bold policies in international relations, both economic and political, and won the strong support of American financial circles. Part of this was using the strong dollar to attract financiers from abroad to invest their money in the debt bonds of the American budget and the money markets that trade with them to finance his program of arming the United States and exhausting the Soviet Union, at that time, in a counter arms race. This is what led to the economic collapse of Communism in 1989.
This policy led to consecutive sharp rises in the value of the dollar during Reagan's first term of office, to the extent that the marker of its exchange rate, measured by the currencies of the other countries and weighted by the United States' economic (trade) exchange with them, reached 159 points in February 1985. This compares to 91 points in the first month of his term in January 1981, an increase of 75%. It was one of the signs of Reagan's political gamble that he ignored the negative and marginal consequences of the strong dollar policy. This is because he was focused on winning the battle of Capitalism over Communism. One of the negative effects was that the strong dollar weakened the ability of American goods to compete with foreign goods produced outside the United States. So the level of American exports declined and its imports increased. Consequently, the deficit in the balance of US foreign trade during Reagan's presidency rose sharply, until its total at the end of Reagan's presidency reached $723 billion, compared to the total of only $4 billion during the eight years that preceded him. Another side effect of the strong dollar was that profits of many US companies declined due to fierce competition between foreign goods and American goods priced in dollars. These companies were compelled to reduce the price of their commodities and then seriously look at ways to cut costs, especially the cost of American manual labour. At that time a group of American professors suggested these companies should be restructured by a fundamental review of their activities in all fields - production, marketing and so on. This idea became widespread amongst American financiers and businessmen. Its implementation led to the closure of several factories and branches of US companies. It also led to great numbers of their employees and workers being dismissed from work. An example of that were the job losses announced by General Motors, one of the biggest car companies in the United States, when it dismissed 74,000 employees in one go. IBM, one of the biggest computer firms, dismissed 60,000 employees in three waves within a short period of time.

After restructuring, these companies managed to recover the production of the factories they had closed down or sold parts of them that they sold in America. This was done by alternative production from new small companies paying low wages to their workers, especially those hit by the job losses caused by restructuring, and by establishing alternative factories and branches outside the United States. This is because the strong dollar made the prices and wages became very meager abroad. The American companies concentrated on poor and heavily populated countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and India, where the monthly wage of a worker barely matched the wages earned by one American factory worker in a few hours. This was not solely confined to manual workers but also included educated and professional workers like engineers and computer programmers, wherever they may be, as long as their wages were much lower than the American standard and they were in desperate need of work and wages. A political outcry flared up in the United States regarding the process of restructuring companies and discharging of workers in a collective manner and in startling numbers. Many Americans viewed the export of work abroad as depriving them of this work and as an attack on their livelihood, and viewed the motive of the companies as nothing but Capitalist greed. The companies replied that they did what they had to do because of intense international competition, and they had no choice but to compete at the international level and 'globalise' their operations. Committees appointed by Congress held meetings open to the public to investigate the globalisation of American companies, the first of which was held in 1987 and the last was in 1992. This investigation led to the idea of globalisation becoming publicised, when the committees consolidated its use by placing it in the headings of their reports that were issued in 1987 and in subsequent years. This was the first time the term 'globalisation' was used in the title of any book or report published in English. Then followed the publication of books on the subject of globalisation until the published material in English reached 260 books, many of which were published in the 1990s during President Clinton's term of office.

However, the effect of these investigations was to air political pressure against the job dismissals by these companies and their exporting of work outside of the United States, to justify of what they did and to eliminate of the hostile atmosphere generated by and within the media. The investigations ended in 1992, and they did not resume after that despite the fact that these issues were raised in the Presidential elections at the end on 1992. After Clinton came to power, Congress agreed to the NAFTA agreement that Bush signed with Canada and Mexico. The agreement enabled American and Canadian companies to manufacture whatever commodities they wanted to in Mexico, where the workers' wages are extremely low, and sell them in American and Canadian markets. This was exactly what American workers' unions and those

American political factions opposing the companies were scared of. Therefore the political outcry and what accompanied it of political conflict in the United States itself against the mass job dismissals and the export of work outside America, and which spread the term of globalisation, had practically came to an end in 1992. It was ended in favour of the US financial circles and companies under their control. All of this led to the formation of public opinion that determined that work requiring high qualification and experience for which high wages should be paid should never leave American soil. If anything was to be exported, it would only be that work involving physical labour, exhaustingly monotonous and of very low wages. Once these expectations were realised then all Americans would benefit, because it would lead them to specialisation in advanced industries, highly qualified, highly experienced and highly paid work. Consequently the work exported would mean that the goods manufactured and assembled by cheap foreign hands outside the country would return to American markets at low prices.

The political resolution of this issue in 1992 and Clinton's accession to power in 1993 led to change in US foreign and economic policy. His predecessor Bush used to adopt the policy of promoting the export of goods and sponsoring the establishment of the World Trade Organisation instead of GATT, to open the doors wide to the export of goods. However, the American financiers and financial circles took the view that what was more important than the promotion of export goods was the need to complete what they had begun in the early 1980s with the comprehensive restructuring of the American companies, to strengthen them so that they would be more able to gain profit. They took the view that this restructuring would lead to the export of a lot of work and not only their goods and also lead to their involvement in fierce competition with non-American companies.

The American financiers put forward other ideas that they wanted Clinton to adopt. They claimed that for many years America had been bearing the burdens and costs of the Cold War and other international burdens. Consequently, Europe and Japan became stronger economically, to the extent they now threatened the vital interests of the United States. Now that the Cold War was over, they said that the United States must regain its ability to compete with Europe and Japan, and resume competing with them in a dominant manner. She should not commit herself to observe and adopt European and Japanese interests as she used to do in the past. Some American financiers even called for the American secret services to be used in economic spying on Europe and Japan and their companies after her preoccupation with the Cold War and other political issues had decreased.

In response to these thoughts and opinions, Clinton and his treasury secretary, Mr Rubin, who was one of the leading personalities on Wall Street, adopted the call for the opening of world markets. This was not only to sell American goods but also to enable US companies to produce goods wherever cheap labour was available, and to market their services and manufactured goods in the United States or any other country, wherever they wished in the world markets. The most important of these was the adoption of the activity of the US finance companies, which includes banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses of the money markets, in foreign money markets. This was a new matter since these companies had previously not worked extensively abroad and were not welcomed in many countries due to the danger of their actions. This was because financial companies by their very nature work to attract people's money in the form of deposits, insurance premiums, shares and bonds. Consequently, a huge amount of money would be concentrated in their hands that would enable them to deal with it in any way they wanted. The American financiers were concerned about the idea put forward immediately after the end of the Cold War, that the world would inevitably be divided into three big economic regions. The first would include the whole of Europe and be controlled by Western Europe. The second would contain most of Asia and be dominated by Japan; and the third would include the two American continents restricted to the hegemony of the United States. They feared that this idea would become reality thus they opposed it vehemently and described it as regionalisation. They alluded to the fact that Europe and Japan were the keenest promoters of this idea. They offered an alternative to this idea, i.e. that the world should become one global market. No one country should have a monopoly over any one region; rather every country should have the right to compete in any place in the world. They promoted this idea through oncentrated media campaigns; the Clinton administration adopted it and many books were published regarding it. From these came books which discussed the globalisation of company activities. This media campaign ended in the United States after the Clinton administration adopted the idea at the beginning of its term of office. It then moved outside of the United States, sponsored by the US administration and its state organisations. Abroad, especially in what are known as the developing countries, the media campaigns became concentrated, and preoccupied the people of those countries with shallow and deceptive thoughts, weak expressions and strange sophistry. Many people were completely bewildered by them. Despite the silly nature of these thoughts to which the campaigns called, they were planned and concentrated to produce specific results. Namely reshaping public opinion in these developing countries and utilising it for the benefit of the US companies to take the fruits of winning the Cold War, and to monopolise them to the exclusion of European and Japanese companies. Unfortunately, it is now clear that these campaigns have achieved their aims and they enabled rulers, smitten by the West and Western culture to stupefy their peoples before the new US onslaught and attack on their country. They are now opening their markets to US goods, employing their cheap labour in US factories attracting people's savings to US finance companies, and using US money markets for speculation.

The following are some of the thoughts concealed under the cover of globalisation that the United States is promoting abroad, especially to Third World countries: 1. After the fall of the Soviet Union there remained in the world only the Western economic system, which was branded the free market system instead of its true name, Capitalism. It is the system that reminds us of its greed and ugliness. All the countries in the world are either implementing it or are striving to implement it. 2. Global finance and the flow of money is now unitary, because its proponents can now transfer it to any country and utilise it in any form of investment whose returns will be greater than other investments. The transfer of money can be done at exceptional speed, made easy by fast means of communication, and this money will not be invested in a country that places obstacles and barriers to investment. 3. The world of business has become united as well. Hence the emergence of multinational companies, even though they are not truly multinational, because their mother company follows only one country and has only one nationality. These companies have the ability to manufacture and market products on a global level; a matter which makes any country wishing to develop welcome these multinationals so that they will employ the people or sell their products, otherwise the multinationals will go to another country. 4. Global communication between all corners of the world has become comprehensive and inter-linked to the extent that it prevents any faction or entity from controlling it. This link has led the information of the people to become shared. Therefore, even people's opinions and tastes have become the same.

These are some concepts of globalisation being promoted in Third World Countries. The aim of promoting these concepts is to develop on their basis the necessity of bringing in foreign money and work. It is also intended to adopt the advice of the advocates of globalisation, in terms of changes to the country's laws and the privatisation of its state institutions to enable such advocates buy these institutions. In their view, there is no other option if the Muslims want to join the procession in a world that has agreed on the globalisation of money and work, otherwise we will remain backward.

No one should ignore the effect of these claims, propaganda and sophistry and the cover of globalisation that conceals them in a country where there are leaders and thinkers whose people are dominated by ignorance and who depend on the state media for their opinions. This is why it is not strange that we compare these claims of globalisation with the missionary invasion of the nineteenth century. This onslaught may be more dangerous than the one that came before because this time it does not carry the cover of religion, though this is more horrible.