In his article on globalisation in openDemocracy, Harlem Desir proposes the establishment of a new order that could be vested in a World Parliament, to be organised under the auspices of the United Nations. He goes as far as suggesting that this Parliament should have the power to raise taxes.
I am tempted to agree with him. After all, we can still hear the echoes of small people talking about the superiority of the west, no matter how noisy the bombardments have become as we order this world around us according to our tastes. Many now argue that in this age the necessity has arisen to create accountable global institutions, endowed with real powers and not prone to be hijacked (no pun intended) by the usual suspects who have made the UN redundant. I just wonder if it can realistically be done, perhaps also suggesting (as Desir seems to do) that Europes role would be crucial in establishing such institutions.
Welcoming international institutions?
Is Europe ready and willing to take the lead on this? Arguably the mood across the continent, even in those countries which are going towards more integration (if sometimes reluctantly), is better represented by the various xenophobic, shoot the bogus asylum-seeker, parochial, ethno/neo-nationalist movements that have spread in recent years, exploiting our fears of globalisation, and selling them back to us re-packaged as defence of our identities. These movements, although complex and diverse, as Thomas Eriksen shows in openDemocracy, are perhaps all expressing a mood of desperate attachment to what is believed to be known be it a national culture, a region, the local community, the local parish or the golf-club.
Those parties, many of which are now shooting at the EU and the bureaucrats in Brussels, represent Europes mood more accurately than Desir does when proposing to put some real order and justice into this world by devolving power to global institutions. From the Peoples Party in Denmark, to the Conservatives in Britain (no, not Margaret again ), this continent speaks the language of closure, of a return to Queen and country politics.
And no, these people do not speak on behalf of a minority. The change of policies of New Labour towards immigrants and asylum seekers, as well as their reassurances about maintaining British control of British affairs vis a vis the alleged attacks of the EU, are indications that conservatism rules, even when Margaret is in opposition.
The Northern League and globalisation
A party which is not in opposition is the Italian separatist, right-wing, xenophobic movement the Northern League (Lega Nord). The way the very term globalisation is used and defined in their propaganda is, I believe, of utmost interest here. With a shift to what at times sounds like leftist rhetoric, the monster of globalisation has been exposed by Lega Nord as a process driven by the economic interests of the mega-corporations, which control the international market. The globalisation of the economy means, among other things, a politics of free immigration from the south of the world pursued by Western powers, eager to secure cheap labour. This is regarded by the League as a very dangerous process indeed: it is a new form of slavery aimed not only at the exploitation of the immigrant, but indeed at the humiliation and, ultimately, the destruction of the various Western European identities and ways of life.
The outcome will be a world finally homogeneous. This perception is evident in the writings of the leader, who has publicised his opposition to what he regards as an almost inevitable consequence of globalisation, that is, a multi-racial Americanised society. In one of their posters they recently invited the brother immigrant to go home an invitation that was only extended to Nato in the Italy of the sixties and seventies: This is our own country. By coming here you help American bankers to take over other peoples economies thanks to globalisation, which makes mincemeat of peoples. If society becomes just a matter of money, everything will be lost: families, children, beliefs and values
The term globalisation, never precisely defined or clearly conceptualised, speaks of the threat of a chaotic world of no certainties and no firm identities.
Lega Nord thus appears confused as to which stance it should take in a rapidly changing world. In fact, northern Italy (that the League strives to represent) strikingly displays a process whereby capitalism is restructuring itself by creating a flexible economy able to perform well in the global market. This is the model of the Third Italy, based on a network of small and hyper-specialised companies. People living in the areas in which this model seems to be stronger are indeed those who often support Lega Nord. However, while embracing modernisation, the people of the north are invited by Lega to reject those aspects of a globalised world which allegedly threaten their identity migration and the consequent loss of purity of Western cultures. The dream is of a return to the local community, where everybody knows everyone else; the community which speaks dialect and where values are shared. The contradiction is that this should happen in the most dynamic and EU-oriented regions of Italy.
So, global institutions, endowed with the power to raise yet more taxes? No thanks, Lega would say. The future lies with ethnic groups (real or invented) taking control of their own destiny, not with more internationalisation, globalisation and devolution of powers towards the top.
What Desir did not address in his inspiring piece is how to make the dream real without imposing it on the peoples of Europe. I, for one, wonder if this is at all possible in the present circumstances.
