Globalisation

And Its ‘Holocaust ’ Effects on the Poor

There is no doubt that globalization has turned the world into
one big village. It is just as well that a person, in the split of
a second, can get information across to another, a striking
thousand miles away. Doubts, however, accrue from the
impact this very ‘internet-time’ has on the slow progress of
poor people, especially in Africa.

By Jean-Marie Nsambu

KOFI Annan, a Ghanaian diplomat, who served as seventh secretary-general of the United Nations, once said that people could not wait for governments to do it all, because globalization operated on “Internet-time,” yet governments tend to be slowmoving by nature, “because they have to build political support for every step.” The 2001 Nobel peace prize winner is also quoted, “It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.”

Like him, Bill Clinton believes, “Globalization is not something we can hold off or turn off.” A former Democrat US president Clinton says, “it (globalization) is the economic equivalent of a force of nature – like wind or water.”

But, for those who appreciate the implications of this global phenomenon on poor people, it has the potential of wiping out industrial enterprise and leaving perpetual underdevelopment in its wake. To the opponents, globalization is a means of the poor to feed the rich – in other words – being preyed upon.