Globalization and Terrorism

The concept of globalization, as a remedy for terrorism, is being promoted by the highly industrialized countries to their own economic advantages. The less developed countries have already rejected it as an instrument of neo-colonialism. Instead of removing the causes of terrorism, the New World Order has further worsened the situation and is likely to aggravate it if not addressed in the right earnest. Public opposition to the proposal is gathering momentum. A powerful organization known as Anti-globalization World Social Forum has emerged which held its meeting in January 2001 in Brazil, with delegates from 123 countries. The most prominent engines of globalization are the multi-national (MNCs) and trance-national (TNCs) companies. They are operating at a scale formerly unthinkable. During the last many decades, they have consolidated their control all over the world. An estimated two third of the world trade is controlled by just 500 corporations, all coming from bigger countries under the umbrella of World Trade Organization. They are enabling the advanced economies to make huge profits at the cost of the less developed countries. Instead of mitigating poverty, the globalization is primed to aggravate it. The best course open to the emerging nations is to form regional trading and economic blocs like the advanced countries. They should protect their resources from exploitation by the multi-nationals and strengthen technology-based economies. But the initiative in this regard is not in the hands of the third world countries. As such they cannot achieve much by themselves. The operation of the multinationals should be controlled throughout the world by the United Nations so that instead of exploiting the poor nations, they function to alleviate world- poverty and remove one of the potent causes of terrorism.

In view of the above, globalization may not be in the interest of the less developed counties but it is such a world-wide phenomenon that it would be hard to contain. It is likely to spread at much faster pace. In that case the UN should divide the whole world into three distinct regions. One of course would consist of highly developed countries who own most of the multinationals. They are the donor countries who provide aid and loans to the rest of the world. The second category should consist of the fairly well off nations who can look after their affairs and are not too heavily indebted to the world bank or other countries. The third block should he of the poor nations labouring under heavy indebtedness. The IMF and the WB should adopt such policies that would provide maximum development resources to them. Special arrangements should be made for transfer of modem technology from developed regions to the other two categories. The objective should be to help the poorer countries to develop at a reasonably faster rate so that they can overcome their poverty and achieve economic development through self-reliance.