Are anti-globalisation protestors selfish?

[Arrian]

Question, Imran:

Why would India WANT Pakistan?

-Arrian

[Tingkai]

It was a joke Imran.

And by the way, you must be feeling pretty good. The Cup looks like a foregone conclusion.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why would India WANT Pakistan?

What?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Spiffor
The pace of American/English culture is overwhelming for many cultures, which are partially threatened from the onslaught (Only Hollywood movies shown in the theater, English-speaking shows everywhere on telly, etc.)

This is cultural imperalism, the displacement of local indigenous cultures by Western ones, esp. US culture. This is just a replay of biological imperialism, which was carried out by Western explorers and settlers throughout the New World and Africa. They brought in their own species of animals and plants without paying attention to indigenous species, thus causing many to extinct.

But I digress. Sure, may Westerners are interested in foreign cultures, but most just see them as either novelties or subjects of study, but hardly ever as something to completely submerge oneself in. Boddie mentioned Chinese and Indian food. I don't think he wants to be identified with either one of these cultures.

Another major problem of globalisation is economic domination. By exporting capital, MNC's seek to dominate emergent markets. Local industries are no match for these deep-pocketed monsters; they can drive out competition by a sustained price war. The World Bank and IMF are unwitting (?) accomplices in this economic imperialism, their loans have an awful numbers of strings attached to them.

[DaShi]

I rarely see foreigner's immersed in Western culture. They just see it as a novelty, subject of study, or a threat resulting from their own insecurities.

[Sava]

I think anti-globalization is more about protesting Multi-National-Corporations' exploitations and abuses rather than protesting the McDonalds in Europe.

[chequita guevara]

*must keep away . . .

[Odin]

I think they are worried that the west would treat the native cultures as "barbaric" and themselves as civilized, like the Brits' attutude towards the cultures on the Indian Subcontinent or China's cultural repression of the Tibetians and the Turks of Xinjiang.

[JohnT]

As opposed to now, when they want to keep them backward and benighted museum pieces?

[Odin]

Originally posted by JohnT
As opposed to now, when they want to keep them backward and benighted museum pieces?

Mixing of cultures is good, steamrolling over other cultures is bad. A group doesn't need to stay backward to preserve a culture unless the group is a hunter-gatherer society.

[Japher]

Lets just make "zoos" in which we can put all the 'native' people and they can live within their cultural tribes and people can come and look at them (but not feed them)... Oh, wait we already do... We just call them Reservations.

Seriouslly, in all do respect, with the population getting bigger and the size of the planet remaining the same, something has got to give. We are moving away from having our individual communities and neighborhoods where everyone comes over and has a BBQ and plays lawn darts... We are forming into a world community, and as a world community we need to learn that some ppl are different and some culturals are different. Is it really Americas fault the some ppl within these regions want a McDonalds or to go to that neighborhood picnic and play some lawn darts?

[GePap]

McDonalds i not culture. It is a food business, and its implications go beyond "culture", to such things as economics. In fact, the biggest effects of globalization have far more to do with a dramatic change in the economic structure of other states, bringing along rapid societal change than it does culture; for example, a new McDonalds will try to fit it menu to where it goes. What changes then is not what general type of food people eat (culture) but how they eat and spend their money (introduction of mass consumerism, an economic change as much as cultural). This si what most globalization people protest, as well as people within small nations. For wexample, McDonalds would seek to get its food from large producer, to lower its cost, so perhaps it won;t buy from small local farmers, thus undercutting the profitability of their livelyhoods. The question is, would growht in other secotrs of the economy offset the loses farmers suffer, and perhaps allow for mass growth in cities as farmers leave the countryside?

That is the read and butter of globali8zation, not whether a man in Britain eats chips or fries. (which is more a factor of Cosmopolitanism, which is ages old)

[Shi Huangdi]

Cultural imperialism is acceptable in that its voluntary. If you don't like US cultural products, don't buy them. If, OTOH, people in a foreign country want to eat at McDonalds, more power to them.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Cultural imperialism is acceptable in that its voluntary. If you don't like US cultural products, don't buy them. If, OTOH, people in a foreign country want to eat at McDonalds, more power to them.

I agree. To some, it may seem chauvinistic. But let's be honest. There are some really bad things that go on in other cultures. Look at the treatment of women in the Muslim world. America has its problems, but it's a helluva lot better than a lot of other crap around the world. And that's why the capitalist system is great. It gives people choices. If the masses decide that McDonald's is bad, they will stop consuming the product and it will die. Or the business will change to adapt to the demand of consumers.

[Kidlicious]

I wonder if the teenagers in France spit in the hamburgers like they do in American?