Globalist: The Journey Towards (from colonization to Orwellian World)

Part II. Middle East and North Africa (Political Economy)

The political economy of the region may be described by many in different ways (i.e. Middle East Policy Council , Gulf Research Center, or Market Watch), however, there few facts which overshadow all other explanations of the political economy of the region.

First, the demand for food and lack of agricultural land has led to perpetual unrest by the region's population. Second, water scarcity has been a source of war and constant contention over territories. Finally, oil, lack of planning, and lack of business ethics continues to deprive people and countries of their own resources.

The regional unrest, although may resemble a desire for a better political system as demonstrated in 2011, does not changed the three facts which has led to perpetual unhappiness throughout this region. Additionally, there is no historical evidence to suggest that lack political, economic, and social ethics will vanish or water suddenly appear, or people become better planners of their resources. 

Western Europe and the US, unlike China and Russia are the illusion that they can influence the region to change. However, as historical interferences and their results demonstrate (such as separating Arabian Peninsula from the Ottoman empire in early 20th century), one bad scenario is replaced with the worse one.      

Globalist: The Journey Towards (from colonization to Orwellian World)

i. Middle East & North Africa (from colonization to Orwellian World)
Part 1.

Just as Orwell’s Animal Farm was well intended by all animal to treat each other with fairness and equality, the revolutions spreading throughout the Middle-East and North Africa Since the end of colonization era in the 20^th century, have intended to create employment for all, equity with western powers, establish their own values, and be fair to all their citizens. In a way, revolutions are continuing, yet, as in the Animal Farm, Old Benjamins, continue their obstinate ways, would it be lack of volunteering, lack of ethics, or lack of propensity to move anything forward. Although the barn was liberated but the old animosities and rivalries were replaced by the ones among the animals as was the case between Napoleon and Snowball (two of the characters of the Animal Farm). So is the irony of revolutions, uprisings, and alike. In a cycle of life, animals of the Farm, long after the revolution, some became more equal than others while many of them dead and forgotten. Yet, production remained the same, old injustices were replaced with new ones, and democracy was a temporary phase making the change possible to a new Farm.

Extending from lower Asia to the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Eden, Black Sea, and Mediterranean, Middle East is riddled with ethnicities, tribes, and ancient animosities that do not lend themselves to harmony, regional cooperation creating any sustainable economic development. The Middle Eastern cultural complexities defy any Hofsdate’s cultural dimensions. Their rivalries is embedded in and at multiple levels of cross borders, cross tribal boundaries, cross cultural, cross ethnicities, cross religious, and cross language differences, hindering the region incapable of becoming a unified region competing effectively in a globalized world Global Issues. This prelude provides the context to the dialectical changes in the political economy of the region in the globalized world that I will address next.                   

       

       

            

Globalist: The Journey Towards (What Next?)

So far, I have created a context for our journey towards globalization. Now, I need to outline where our globe goes from here. To fully unfold globalization, going forward, I will address the following:

1. Global Regional Political Economy
    i. Middle East & North Africa (from colonization to Orwellian World) 
   ii. Asia & Indian sub-Continent (un-ending stream of ethnicities)
  iii. China, Taiwan, Japan (the oddities)
  iv. Australia, New Zealand, & S.E. Asia ( The Barriers and Reefs)
   v. East & West of Europe (one continent, two views)
  vi. North America
 vii. South America

2. Economic Case for trade and globalization
   i. Comparative advantage
  ii. Accumulation of capital & exploitation of Labor
 iii. Expanding Markets at the expense of resources & Environment
 iv. Class warfare

3. Corporations vs. People
   i. Multinationals & cross cultural organizations
  ii. In Search of resources
 iii. Follow the money trails
 iv. Logistics & supply chain

4. NGOs & GOs
   i. Their role in globalization
  ii. Their influence on economies
 iii. Building Bridges while bombing the masses

5. Global Citizen: Orwell's hero, Winston, meeting the inevitability      
  

Globalist: The Journey Towards (Sovereign Debts & Political Instability, and Social Networks)

Ireland, Spain, Portugal, just to name a few debtor nations, have reached a point of financial impasse. The people in the debtor nations do not want to pay for the public good provided and; hence, the governments are spending more than they are collecting taxes.

As financial crisis continues, political crisis is expanding. As of today, Kurds are digging in and expanding their protests in Turkey as the Arab uprising continues from the North Africa to the Mediterranean shores and to Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.      

The culprit for political instability may be contributed to (1) lack of cohesive regional powers as was the case during the cold war era of the 20^th century and (2) social networking technologies enabling people spread information without adequate processing of information to create knowledge, analyze, apply, and synthesize to intelligently articulate them.   

Globalist: The Journey Towards (Can We Manage it?)

Globalization has brought about new efficiencies in logistics, operations, cross border economic transactions, and through global organizations such as UN, IMF, and World Bank has provided new opportunities for world communities to discuss and address political and economic issues. Yet, globalization has been shifting sand blown around by old regional ethnic rivalries, religious factions, and new economic powers and new rogue governments.   

World War II led the way to formation of UN as we know it today to prevent wars and help social developments and maintain human dignity in light of man-made and natural disasters.  Other economic institutions such as IMF to help governments maintain their economic systems and assist in creating a balance between various currencies while World Bank provided a venue to assist with development of infra-structures for less developed and developing countries.  

At the first glance, governments’ experiences with dramatic human sacrifices during WWII paved the way for genuine efforts by institutions to create honest global efforts to prevent global man-made disasters. However, 60 years later, the result of globalization has ended in amassing unbelievable foreign reserve fortune in the hands of China (China's Foreign Reserve Power) that can truly buy US military forces in its entirety, the US agricultural business with all its assets, and few other US assets, crippling or mandating US to do as it pleases. To further weaken the globalization positive development, after the fall of Soviet bloc, corruption from Eastern Europe (Eastern European Corruption) is beginning to find inroad into the Western Europe through their mergers with European Union. Other issues such as Iran and Kurds continue to hunt positive aspects of globalization.   

Iran, to maintain its power internally, must create enemies externally to rally its population to support its regime. In doing so, Iran has allied itself with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. In addition it has exploited the historical differences between the Shiites and the Sunnis (Iran vs. The World). There are other countries such as Korea, just to name a few, who continue to usurp the rights of their people and be a torn in the otherwise rosy prospect in the globalization path. In addition to the rogue nations, there are also regional ethnic issues in Africa, Asia, and Europe that keeps globalization progress slow and many ethnic groups subject to oppression. One such example is the ethnic group known as Kurds. They are spread from Western Iran to Northern Iraq, North East of Syria, and Southern Part of Turkey and into the West of Armenia. Oppressed by all governments, deprived of their rights, these ethnic groups are subjected to political oppression, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of access to power through peaceful means.   

Globalization, like any other changing phenomena, is existential and dialectical. Therefore, we can keep writing about how to manage international corporations, how to manage global Human Resources, and how to manage many other business-related and management-related issues but the best we can do is to begin a more fundamental conversation about can we navigate through globalization rather than simply wishful thinking that we can manage it.   

Globalist: The Journey Towards (Drugs, Oil, and Ethics)

The first decade of the 21^st century gave us an additional dimension to the concept of globalization. From Afghanistan to Argentina, from Mexico to Iran, and from Columbia to the United States, drug dealers have become a more powerful force in dictating daily lives of millions of people while holding communities, countries, and international political economy landscape hostage INTERPOL.

Too often, as a way of funding terrorism and, state controlled political machineries such as Iran and Afghanistan engage in smuggling operations to earn hard currencies, create foreign reserves, and maintain social obedience Iran's Drug Trafficking.

Oil and gas has become a powerful weapon in globalized oil dependent economies. At one end, the oil companies can fund and influence political landscapes Oil in American Politics and on the end, governments such as Russian government can use the gas resources to manipulate and exploit the fortunes of old Soviet Republics such as Ukraine and exert pressure on Western Europe every winter Gas & Politics, Mixing Oil, Gas, & Politics.     

As Drugs, gas, and oil have become tools of mass destructions in the hands of government officials and other criminals, what has happened to global ethics? Where did global ethics go? Can we agree on some foundational definition of good versus bad? There are attempts by educational institutions and journals to bring together diverse perspectives in addressing ethics such as Center for Global Ethics, think tank groups such as The Millennium Project. However, unless we can define an acceptable term that can be applied to individuals to help each person do the right thing in this globalized world, we will continue to struggle with individuals and governments who have ill intentions towards others.     

Globalist: The Journey Towards (Currency Influence)

A country’s currency can provide a powerful tool in dictating the stabilization of the global order. As such, the US dollar in addition to its use in the United States, is the official currency of British Virgin Islands, Caribbean Netherlands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Panama, and Turks and Caicos Islands. In addition, the US dollar is used as an official parallel currency in Cambodia, Lebanon, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. Finally, numerous countries and their people hold dollar as a reserve to hedge themselves against rampant inflation and uncertainty Federal Reserve Board.

Second, a currency such as Euro (€) reflects the collective will of member states and their underlying collective economic power and problems in 17 countries. Euro is the official currency of Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Finland Euro Area.

Although, officially, US dollar and Euro are adopted by approximately 10% of the global population, over 50% of the global population use them as an alternative to hedge themselves against inflation in countries where these  currencies are not the official currency keeping their value high.    

Therefore, globalization can be influenced by the extent of a currency’s influence as much as political and economic pressures may be used in the pursuit of securing natural resources to fuel economies.