The Failure of Globalization to Eliminate Regional Conflicts

            The rapid globalization of the 1990s greatly changed the way states and individuals interacted with each other. As communication became faster and easier, trade increased, and domestic conflicts became internationalized, states and individuals became increasingly interconnected and in many ways interdependent. This processed posed the question, how would the world change in the face of such interconnectedness? In his book, How Soccer Explains the World, Franklin Foer says that globalization enthusiasts of this time believed “that once a society becomes economically advanced, it would become politically advanced – liberal, tolerant, democratic” (Foer, 2010), thereby eliminating many causes of conflict. In addition to economic forces, cultural globalization would also act upon societies to reduce conflict, and eventually “everyone would assimilate into a homogenizing mass entertainment culture, where TV comedies and cinematic romances bind together different races into a new union of common pop references” (Foer, 2010). However, in the past twenty years, the world has not seen this predicted decrease in conflict. Rather, regional conflicts have continued and intensified because globalization does not address the true cause of these conflicts, as seen in the rivalry between Glasgow Rangers and Celtics fans.

             The Old Firm rivalry is built on long-standing hatred between Protestants and Catholics in the United Kingdom. For hundreds of years, these groups faced state-sanctioned discrimination, violence, and even ethnic cleansing at the hands of the other. Today, while the effects of this tension are less extreme, they are still apparent. Foer writes that Rangers fans sing anti-Catholic songs and chant  “F--- the pope” at matches (Foer, 2010). After a Rangers victory over the Celtics, fans “stabbed, shot, and beat senseless three young Celtic supporters,” murdering one and leaving another in critical condition (Foer, 2010). In Northern Ireland, Rangers fans would be “instantaneously mauled” in areas of IRA activity (Foer, 2006). Economic and cultural globalization alone do nothing to ease these tensions. These tensions do not threaten the economic wellbeing of either club or fan base; in fact, both teams profit off the vicious rivalry (Foer, 2010). Similarly, this hatred rarely hurts either team, Glasgow, the UK, or the Scottish Premier League politically. It’s possible that nothing could abolish the deep-seated animosity between these two groups on which the Old Firm rivalry is built. But it is clear that globalization alone cannot eliminate regional conflicts.

(A video demonstrating the Old Firm rivalry and its political and religious background.)

Robert J. Samuelson writes that the effects of globalization are very contradictory. “One the one hand, we are being drawn closer together by the explosion of low-cist digital technologies, cheapening transportation and expanding trade,” he says. “On the other hand, we’re being pulled further apart by deep and durable ethnic, religious, historical and nationalistic schisms” (Samuelson, 2014). He explains that achieving prosperity is not life’s central goal or what fundamentally defines people. Rather, “they had other competing beliefs, traditions and ambitions that qualified and limited the power of economic growth” (Samuelson, 2014). Because of this, the world is not the place people imagined it would become in the 1990s, and political leaders should rethink the power and limits of globalization (Samuelson, 2014). A new type of thinking must be employed to adequately deal with regional conflicts such as the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, ethnic groups in Africa, and even different classes and races within the United States.

Sources:

Foer, F. (2010). How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. New York: Harper Perennial. 

Samuelson, R.J. (2014, August 17). Global prosperity is no panacea: the post-euphoric world. The Washington Post. Retrieved on December 1, 2014 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-j-samuelson-global-prosperity-is-no-panacea/2014/08/17/388b1eb8-24d3-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html