Conflict and globalization

The new conflicts rose mostly within nations, not between them. Some of them conflicts were not new at all. They did not emerge, but re-emerge, often after decades of silence. The power struggle between East and West had paralyzed conditions in the South and prevented any change whatsoever, fearing that such a change witin a country might endanger the demarcation lines between each other’s spheres of influence. Economic conflicts can be managed within a reasonable period of time, by a good combination of economic growth and (re)distribution of assets and income, creating a perspective of progress for everybody, also present generations. Cultural, social, etnic, religious or sub-national domestic conflicts, however, last long. They are rooted deeply in society. Cultural conflicts, whether or not accompanied or sharpened by economic inequalties, outlive generations. They are less manageable than economic conflicts, because there is no way out by means of sharing or redistribution. In an economic conflict there is always a win-win solution feasible: the right path of investment, growth and distribution can make all parties gain. An economic increase of one party does not necessary have to result in a welfare loss for others. Cultural identity conflicts are different.  Identities are defined in terms of absolute positions, not in terms of shares of total potential welfare. A stronger position of one group in a society   -  be it a tribe, an etnic group, a religious denomination, a social class, a sex, a tongue, a colour, a caste, an elite, a nationalistic clan, or any group defining its identity in other than purely economic terms  -   always means that another group will lose. Welfare is a relative concept. It can be increased, also through intelligent distribution. Power is an absolute concept. Total power cannot be increased by means of reditributing it. Power is a zero sum game. Only when cultural conflicts are not be seen as power conflicts but as identity conflicts, a solution is possible, provided that each group considers its identity not threatened but enriched through communication with the other. Cultural confrontation has to be transformed into a cultural exchange. But as long as this is not the case such conflicts are longer lasting, less manageable and more violent than either economic conflicts or international disputes. That is what happened in the ninety-nineties, after the euphoria of the end of the Cold War had evaporated.  Old conflicts reemerged, weapons were wetted and violence struck many countries from within.

Violence was not contained to the original location of the conflict. It was brought to other countries by the same forces which brought about globalization. That was the second major new phenomenon in the ninety nineties. The concept of globalization was not discussed in Rio; the word was not even mentioned.  Of course, there had been internationalization throughout: intercontinental transport, foreign investment and trade, international finance, imperialism and colonisation, world wars, efforts to build international alliances, a League of Nations, the UN itself. Globalisation was not a new process, we had seen it for centuries, and had witnessed a stronger pace in the four decades since World War Two. But in the final decade of the last century it got a  new shape. Internationalisation had been an economic and a political process, steered and fostered by means of concrete decisions of policymakers and entrepreneurs. It was man-made. But somewhere in the nineties internationalisation turned into globalisation. It got a momentum of its own, became less a consequence of demonstrable human decisions, more self-contained and selfsupporting. The driving force was twofold. First, technological advance, enabling full and fast information and communication everywhere, physically and virtually. Second, economic, the global market, linking production, investment, transportation and trade  advertisement and consumption anywhere in the world to any other place. The result was a disregard for national frontiers, a strengthening of global corporations, an erosion of nation states.

Globalisation became a cultural affair as well. A reality in the mind of the people: time differences and long distances are no longer barriers for communication. Technology has solved this. What used to be far away has come close, what lays at walking distance is not being noticed or is even shut out of  people’s consciousness. The factual distance and the actual time difference are no longer relevant, only the distance within the human mind counts. In the Conference centre in Sandtown, Johannesburg, most of us felt through our air ticket, cell-phone, e-mail, credit card and CNN much closer connected with people in comparable conditions in metropoles abroad than with AIDS-victims on the African continent, landless people in South Africa, jobless in Alexandra. And here in New York most of us will relate in their minds more with surfers on Internet on the other side of the globe than with homeless people on 42nd street. Everything is happening  everywhere in the world at the same moment and affecting everybody, wherever. It is a real time world with real time connections and we feel part of it.