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Building South-North Dialogue on Globalization Research

Yassine Essid, University of Tunis, Tunisia


Introduction

The rise of globalization is the most significant fact of the twentieth century. This process has relied on the liberalization of trade and capital flows, on a dazzling acceleration of the technologies of transport and information and communications, as well as on an increasing internationalization of business activities. While globalization is gaining strength and momentum in industrialized countries, active inclusion of the underdeveloped countries in this process is dragging on and is deepening the disparities between these countries and the wealthier, industrialized ones.

According to the history and geography of Arab Mediterranean countries, globalization is not a recent development. But since 1990 its dynamics have changed in response to the application of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) meant to encourage their transition to a liberal market model. Despite the opening of their economies to global markets, these countries have remained on the sidelines of economic globalization. This singular reality — where a globalization process is lived and experienced mainly through its symbols, while generating at the same time fear and concern — demands our attention and justifies our interest in evaluating this reality from the point of view of both social actors and public opinion — if the latter exists in the Arab Mediterranean countries.

Through this contribution I do not seek to arrive at an accurate description of Arab public opinion about globalization. This task is quite unrealizable today. My objective is more modest and I will limit myself to an evaluation of the different reactions to globalization in the Arab Mediterranean countries. For this purpose I have relied mainly on the reading of certain well known Arabic daily and weekly newspapers published between 1995 and 2006.1 Some of these articles merely report on events related to globalization, in particular anti-globalization protests. Others report on congresses, forums,2 conferences, and other international or regional meetings on globalization such as the Davos Forum or the G8 meetings. A small remaining portion deals with the effects of globalization on Arab societies through analysis and interviews with some notable Arab personalities.3 The survey of articles did not provide the expected results since the content was lacking sufficiently credible information and clear insights to permit pertinent answers to questions about the Arab perception of this phenomenon. Moreover, some authors, still imbued with Arab nationalism, refer to a region without noting the nuances or the disparities contained in terms like "Arab world," "Arab society," "Arab nation," Arab homeland," or "Arab land." This entity is far from being a homogeneous area despite the common language, religion, and territorial contiguity.

Such geographical references, being too broad and too disparate to be precise, and where authors speak of Near-East, Maghreb, Arab Mediterranean countries, and Arab Gulf countries combined, may be a convenient way to circumvent censorship in an Arabic press still tightly controlled by authoritarian regimes. As long as the published paper is directed against an entity that everyone claims but which has no tangible existence, its author has nothing to worry about because no Arab regime, whatever its severity, would feel concerned by the critical paper. Thus, a journalist in any Arab country can today and with total impunity draw up a provocative and unflattering picture of the Arab regimes and afford to enumerate under the guise of us (Arabs) a distressing list of their abuses, denounce their lack of political will or development strategy, speak of the negligence of the administrative and education systems, describe these regimes to be inconsistent and indecisive, and finally add that they do not believe in reforms, that they are resistant to progress, and that they suppress freedom without which one cannot build a caring and advanced society. They can write all these things without fear of being prosecuted.4

When scholars from the North wish to analyze the perception of globalization in a Western country (Fougier 2001) where public opinion expresses itself through various channels, they can make use of a variety of sources: reports developed by governmental and non-governmental agencies and research centres, the positions taken by known protesters like José Bové in France or advocates of associations such as Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC). They can make use of surveys and opinion polls as an indicator of broad trends. In short, they would have at their disposal enough data to be able to understand the position of all social actors: managers, workers and employees, media, economists and consumers, and the so-called civil society, in order to determine whether this process is subject to real concerns: Is globalization a source of anxiety? Is it perceived as a blessing or a danger? And if the latter is the case, for whom does it represent a danger? Finally they would try to find out if there were differences of opinion between certain categories of the population. The use and the analysis of the collected information would permit scholars to achieve reliable estimates between "pro" and "anti" sentiments. Today, for example, many governments in developed countries, responding to public opinion, want World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations to fail because they have changed their views on globalization and believe that it is no longer a blessing for America and Europe and that the progress being made by Asian and other emerging countries is taking place at the expense of the West (Le Monde, 31 May 2008).

Such an approach to the study of public opinion, which looks conventional to a scholar from the North, is not even considered by their counterparts in almost all Arab Mediterranean countries because opinion polls are banned by authoritarian regimes which do not allow public debate. The restriction of freedom of expression directly eliminates from the social horizon, and from media fields, such political and economic actors as company managers, unions, associations, and social scientists. Accordingly, these countries are deprived of useful information to help the government shape policy options and decision making.

While the present analysis is indicative of the difficulties of research on globalization in the South, it teaches us more about ourselves than about globalization itself. In saying this, I do not intend to settle a debate but to expose a particularly unusual political and cultural reality in a world of accessibility, availability, and abundance of data of all kinds about globalization.

Globalization

The importance of words does not lie in the words themselves but rather in the way they are used, by whom, and for what purpose. When the word globalization is invoked, it does not cover the same reality in the United States, Tunisia, or China. When and how did this word invade the Arabic media to become a true subject of controversy, hailed by some as the solution so much expected to stir up the Arab world from its long lethargy, or hated by others as threatening their future and their identity? To use the Arabic globalization discourse productively one has to begin with the question: What does "globalization" mean? Most articles came to a halt when confronted with defining the meaning of the word "globalization." In the period from 1995-1999 the phrase "new world order" was used over globalization. Later, and gradually, the word "globalization" made its way into the Arabic discourse on development, gaining widespread acceptance around 2000 with growing anti-globalization protests in the West.

In the Arab context, the word "globalization" initially carried no polemic meaning and did not provoke any particular feeling. It was limited to the description of a state of the world to which all Arab regimes accepted and adhered without resistance. Through a process of "manufacturing of consent," wider political discourse and the press used the word to help shape the perception that people had of the world around them. Globalization became synonymous with global markets, free trade, transnational corporations, elimination of capital controls, and especially the disengagement of the State from social regulation and policies. As these various aspects of globalization did not particularly affect Arab social actors, the Arabic press and its readers were left in a state of a total indifference. To the extent that globalization was a non-event, people felt no need to think about it. Thus, the question of how globalization is perceived is less about what globalization is seen to entail or whether it is good or bad, than it is about the attitude of the actors of the South vis-à-vis their own societies and their own destiny.

The Arab Countries

Despite this new international context of rampant globalization, Arab Mediterranean countries have distinguished themselves in lacking any real autonomous development strategy. They have been unable to build on the advantage that their natural endowments and geography offer them, but have always been clever in squandering it. These countries have also been increasingly under strong internal and external pressure: the low legitimacy of most regimes, authoritarian blockage, and the presence of a patrimonial state restricting the rest of the population in its social demands, defective governance, and regional conflicts (Aouida 2008). This scarcely gratifying assessment contrasts sharply with that of Latin America and East Asia — regions which succeeded in the 1990s in stabilizing their economies, implementing an effective democratization of political life, making the acquisition of market mechanisms a success, and pushing toward rapid growth in exports. It is understandable then why the Arab countries that have remained on the threshold of major changes taking place in the world, felt little affected by globalization. At the end of the SAPs aimed to make their integration into the world market more effective, the economies of these countries had not recovered, nor were they able to begin the convergence of their per capita income with that of countries of the northern shore of the Mediterranean. They remain low-growth economies, in a state of "expected development."5 We must add to this the weaknesses of efforts at regional integration announced but never achieved: the Middle-East, Maghreb, Euro-Mediterranean. Despite the strength of their historical and sociological ties, regional economic cross-linkages paled in importance with those crossing North-South lines. This lack of integration constituted a handicap for those countries, preventing them from easing their dependence on the North and from securing a firm footing and acting in a more autonomous way in the global sphere.

Yet all studies showed that regional cooperation could be particularly useful to those countries in order to cope with the consequences of globalization by allowing them to take advantage of the positive effect of competitiveness in certain sectors, to make themselves heard, and give themselves more clout in international forums.

Thus, insofar as the degree of integration of these countries into globalizing processes has been low, what then would it mean to speak about being for or against these processes, to rejoice or to worry about them? This could be one explanation for the lack of commitment of Arab intellectuals faced with a process they could not blame for the unenviable situation of their societies.

The Arab countries are not ones open to public protest or free expression, far from it. It is useless then to try to measure the degree of their support for globalization. In the West, globalization is perceived in different ways depending on the region or country. In the United States, for example, globalization is understood in terms of trade liberalization, while in France it is thought about in terms of capital movements and essential national and cultural identities. What then would be at stake for the Arab world? A priori one can say that what is expressed in the West would be, on this side of the Mediterranean, just curious incongruities. As in many other areas, globalization is not the outcome of a free choice for the Arab peoples. It is and remains a fact imposed by circumstances above and beyond their will. That is just the way it is and we do not oppose it or try to make the best use of it. Does globalization instigate a policy of regional unity in order to protect these countries from its side effects? An Arab union? Maghreb union? Euro-Mediterranean cooperation? The absence of any serious discussion of this issue in the Arab press and the lack of mobilization of the South on the subject seem quite surprising especially in the case of particularly vulnerable nations.

From 1995 on, Arab writers were very much dependent on Western literature and deeply influenced by Western futurists (Tofler, Rifkin, Kennedy) or alarmed by the writings of some others, like Samuel Huntington and Fukuyama. Gradually, they began to anticipate a view of the world, in part created by and certainly perpetuated by the mass media and Western means of communication, in which the state and the nation are doomed to a gradual disappearance. This picture has been drawn without any reference to the actual conditions of Arab societies.

In 2001, the Arabic press broke with its reserve and began echoing the protest movements in the West, expressing more concern while recognizing that the world is changing and that the old divisions are less and less relevant. For the majority of authors there was no happy globalization, nor a possible resistance to a phenomenon acknowledged irreversible as evidenced by the profusion of adjectives used to express the impetuosity of the process of globalization. It has been described alternately as a "rushing tide" strong enough to destroy everything in its path, a "beachcomber" forcing people to be vigilant for opportunity, a "monster" that devours everything and sometimes a "dictatorship" for its nature as both coercive and arbitrary, or simply a "disaster." Globalization came to be seen then as an absolute evil that one should fight against with extreme measures because it affects national security and identity.

This alarmist vision gradually gave way to a more realistic assessment while continuing to be shaped by events occurring in the West. No study of the phenomenon has started from the local reality and one would look in vain for a careful diagnosis of the situation or an answer to the question of how should the Arab countries respond to the various facets of globalization.

Such deficiencies can be explained without doubt by the absence in the Arab region of autonomous and productive centres carrying out economic and social surveys of the particularities of the region, especially in its relationship with globalization. As for professional employer organizations, they lack appropriate structures that would permit them to contribute to the dissemination of information and to the promotion of innovative and productive strategies. These organizations also failed to lead or support critical debates and discussions to enlighten social actors on the state of the economy and society in a context of globalization. There were certainly UNDP reports prepared by Arab experts (UNDP 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005), but they presented such a severe diagnosis of the situation in the Arab world in all fields that they were considered unreliable and rejected by Arab governments.

All the discourses, at that time, expressed purely emotional distress and could not lead to a serious assessment of the state of the Arab world in relation to globalization. In a spirit of confrontation, which the Third-World rhetoric was then used to, globalization was seen as ideology, served by imperialism and neo-colonialism, and something to be rejected just as the Arabs had been trained to reject America, Europe, and the West.

Globalization and Culture

Although Arab countries do not live globalization in the same way that Western industrialized countries do, their societies were nonetheless affected by it. With the opening up of the economies of Arab countries came new lifestyles and consumption behaviour, primarily in the major cities of the region (Pages and Vignal 1998) but affecting only a very small part of the population who sought access to the Internet, ate in fast-food franchises, purchased goods at shopping malls and supermarkets, and desired global brands and imported goods. In other areas, the effects of globalization extended to a wider population and included the proliferation of media and satellite channels, domination of the English language, and so on. These technological advances have been able to make certain people believe that the world has become one, that distance has been abolished, that from now on goods and people will move without constraint, and that life will be more enjoyable. That the reality is quite different will not fail to feed the frustration of many.

In today's world, like a century ago, people's dissatisfaction has economic and social causes and the responses should be made on these levels. Yet, since 1998 the Arab press has become more and more anxious about the issue of globalization and culture as evidenced in multiple forums held in several Arab countries. Neither politics nor the economy has attracted as much interest. In a context of globalization, Arab peoples feel more openly threatened in their identity, namely their language,6 their religion, and their lifestyle than with respect to their economies as a result of the little resistance they are able to pose to globalization, the integration of their fragile countries in the world-system, and the absence of any hope for the region to unite in order to take action against globalization. Moreover, while globalization is considered inevitable in the economic sphere, this prospect is less acceptable on the cultural level where it is synonymous with Americanization, individualism, consumerism,7 hegemony of the English language, and is a major challenge for the national identity.8 In terms of official information, the debate on globalization and culture has not only been tolerated but is even encouraged by Arab governments. In playing up all the evils globalization may inflict on culture, the Arab regimes found a convenient way to conceal political and economic choices and their negative social effects.

If we assume that globalization is an irreversible fact, the question then is the following: to what extent is it possible for the Arab countries to meet the challenges of globalization successfully — in other words, to take advantage of the benefits of globalization economically, commercially, and technologically while at the same time ensuring social justice and preserving the Arab-Islamic identity? This question gives rise to a huge research program, in that it involves simultaneous analysis of the economic, the political, the social, the cultural, and the institutional.

Whether it is the media itself, language, intellectual property, identity, or the status of women and religion, the Arab press is unanimous in its assessment of the vulnerability of Third-World countries that find themselves marginalized economically, transformed culturally, and dominated politically. Among the long list of objections raised against globalization are fractured social roles, the influence of new thinking, uniformity in behaviour and lifestyles, the intrusion of foreign cultures in societies and in homes, the harm incurred by the most fragile social category — youth — in succumbing to the temptations of the pseudo-modernity purveyed by globalization. Globalization is also regarded as a hegemonic enterprise that associates identities with the market, and society with the principle of transnational power. Worse still, in globalizing the local, globalization succeeds in making national identity an open and promising market. It is remarkable that not a single connection was made between this theme with the wrong choices Arab governments made in their development strategies, including those that resulted in serious shortfalls in the field of knowledge and its modes of acquisition.9 The deficits in these fields are evidenced today in the social and cultural crises with which Arab societies are struggling and in the condition of young people in the Arab countries who are dissatisfied with life and pessimistic about the future to the point that, according to the UNDP report, 51 percent of them are thinking about emigrating abroad.

Some discordant voices have detected positive aspects in the globalization of culture. They consider globalization, which is not a new phenomenon for them, as a source of cultural and intellectual enrichment for humanity, a factor of progress that allows Arab peoples to open themselves up to global culture and expand mutual understanding and coexistence among nations and peoples. Some, but not many, saw the globalization of media as an opportunity to release the state channels from their decay10 and they acknowledged the positive effect of the foreign channels that invaded the Arab media universe, moving the Arab audience away from stifling national channels in the state's political grip. They agree, however, that these regimes are not totally responsible and that globalization was also an opportunity to shake up Arab intellectuals who in reaction to globalization might create some sort of counterculture and in doing so be forced to acknowledge the shortcomings of the Arab social and cultural systems. Some other writers observe that the explosion of satellite channels has sanctified the particularities of Arab societies. Thus, in Arab countries the increase in the number of satellite channels has paradoxically directed the public to Arab and Islamic channels rather than to Western ones. The same phenomenon has occurred within the Arab diaspora in Europe whose persons prefer Arab channels to those of the host country, making their cultural integration/alienation more problematic. In sum, the globalization of information has succeeded where Arab nationalist parties have failed: to achieve cultural unity.

To Arab leftists, globalization represents the unbiased progress of productive forces and international capitalism. But this "progress" is led by the Western powers that enforce new liberal policies through which they will exploit the resources of underdeveloped countries in order to marginalize them further. Arab countries are then not expected to engage in the process of globalization and should seek some avenues of independent and autonomous development. Arab leftists, without breaking completely with the globalization fact, insofar as they adhere to it in terms of secularism, rationality, and modernity, still denounce its economic hegemony seen as an instrument of economic exploitation of peoples. Globalization remains however in their eyes an opportunity to accelerate the process of economic and social development of the Arab countries, and a way to explore East Asia's model of social and economic complementarities.

There is one issue upon which both Arab nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists agreed in addition to their common opposition to globalization. This is their fear that globalization will undermine a certain number of national and religious fundamentals. They both adhere to the fact that globalization has a long history that goes as far back as the time of the Crusades and extends through the colonial era. They both agree that it is an invention of the West, a plan by the United States, rooted in historical determinism, to dominate the Arab-Islamic world. According to Islamic fundamentalists, however, globalization is a force for Christian proselytizing if it is not simply an offensive against faith, whether Christian or Muslim. It gives the dominant power adequate means to destroy other cultures. Insofar as the Muslim religion is the basic constituent of Arab culture, accepting globalization thus means surrendering and letting Arab-Muslim societies be invaded by a foreign culture, at the expense of the loss of their religion.

Globalization and Religion

Where Arab nationalists denounce the lack of political unity and cultural protection against globalization, Muslim fundamentalists take advantage of this issue to put an emphasis on the globalizing character of Islam. In this era of globalization, where everything is governed by international authorities that are given the power to uphold the rules of the game, religion remains in their eyes the only domain that falls outside any international regulation11 and at the same time the only area which could really offer a challenge to the effects of globalization. The latter was denounced as an expression of Western ideology which seeks to destroy the fundamental principles of Muslims through the dissemination of values of Enlightenment philosophy, calling for the separation of religion and state, imposing democracy and human rights, calling for the freedom of women and the emancipation of slaves, and abolishing punishments that Islam imposes on violators of divine law. The only way to resist globalization would be by a return to the origins of the Muslim religion which means installing the power of God on earth. Other voices, less radical,12 have tried to show to what extent Islam is in perfect harmony with globalization. Indeed, according to these writings, monotheistic religions have emerged in chronological order: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism has been limited to the Chosen People, and as for Christ he never called for the spread of the Christian faith in the world; what we call the universality of Christianity was the work of his disciples as confirmed by Quranic verse III, 49 "And He will teach him the Book, the wisdom, The Torah, the Gospel, to be a messenger to the children of Israel….". Here, the West simply forgets that Islam is the only religion that affirms the possibility of extending monotheism to the entire planet and only Islam has actually a message to all humanity and for eternity:

In comparison, the fathers of the Church have tried to unite the faithful in Catholicism, but after Luther, Catholicism became exclusive. Successive popes have excluded the Orthodox, the Cathares, and the Protestants. Only Islam has accepted all the other Islams.

Globalization and the Economy

Worries about the future and the economic insecurity affecting all social categories, are also seen as a consequence of globalization and include: job losses following privatization, impact of foreign competition on local companies, gradual withdrawal of the state from public sectors such as education and health, replacement of the traditional stable, full-time job by precarious short-term contract work, especially for the least-skilled employees, and so on. These fears have been expressed most intensively of all in the Arab press since 1998.

Towards globalization, considered a reformist project in the field of economics, the Arab Mediterranean society presents roughly the following configuration of actors and viewpoints:

The feeling that no real power is left for the state to influence globalization, insofar as it is itself taking part in this process through structural reforms, is perfectly evident among representatives of sectors that have long lived in the shelter of the state or were used as a cog in the political machinery of the state to help keep peace and stability. This issue has stirred many debates among managers and union organizations,13 through forums and in the press. Their speech was in fact essentially addressed to the government. Some were as usual asking for more aid and protection14 others reminded the state of its mission of social regulation.15

In reading the Arabic press I am struck by the absence of a clear vision in trade union discourses vis-à-vis globalization. As one might expect, their concern about globalization's impact crystallizes around the issue of employment. To understand the timorous attitude of this actor towards globalization's other impacts, one must know the position of trade unions in some Arab countries. Sometimes when facing inevitable reforms and in total accord with the state, some of them succeeded in slowing down the pace of privatization or ensured that economic liberalization is truncated. The few recriminations the unions have addressed to the logic of liberalism are summed up in the consequences for the admission of their countries in the free market economy: a decline in public spending, privatization, removal of government subsidies on staple food, the dismantling of tariffs and customs, monetary devaluation, and encouragement of foreign direct investment (FDI). They predict that a strict application of these measures will have deep consequences on the social balance in the country starting with the worsening of unemployment. This concern of course calls for the strengthening of the active role of unions and the extension of measures of solidarity. Some unions go so far as to suggest the creation of an observatory to monitor suspicious activities of transnational firms.

Faced with the dangers of international competition, Arab business industrialists, bankers, and insurers, have paradoxically, it would seem, expressed their own fears about globalization. Their discourse is at odds with the ideology of the private sector itself which calls theoretically for more freedom and less government via globalization. Yet these private sector actors still rely on their government to benefit from measures to upgrade their business and to withstand foreign competition once trade barriers are dismantled.

This concern is particularly strong when an alternative perspective to globalization is dramatically lacking: no associations or mergers and acquisitions are in view among Arab companies. It is also worth noting that most of these concerns expressed by business leaders in the press are not based on data compiled by serious professional organizational structures in Arab countries but are generally based on reports from international institutions or simply what the press has reported in terms of international events such as the financial crisis that shook Asia and which has helped to revive doubts about the beneficial effects of integration into the global economy. The Arab press has largely taken this opportunity to denounce globalization.

On the other hand, some industrialists in the region have sought to adapt to globalization by suggesting a set of measures that could bring them into line with other countries trying to do the same: improvements in management strategies, attraction of FDI, better governance, greater transparency, simplification of administrative procedures, or improving infrastructure. But this discourse looks even more unrealistic in the context of a fragmented Arab world with no multilateral regional institutions and torn between two geopolitical models of economic development and international relations, a European and an American one. The idea of creating an Arab entity, like the European Union (EU), that can ensure the admission of the Arab world into globalization, is raised by several authors, but the more realistic among them have wrapped it in conditions that rule out any hope to see it realized: pluralism and democratic freedom, transparency of institutions and markets, reliable justice, systematic reciprocity, raising social and environmental standards, greater openness to scientific progress and technology, and intensification of inter-Arab trade.

One of the main objections raised against globalization in some Western countries concerns the withdrawal of the state in regulating society and the loss of national sovereignty as a result of power exercised by transnational companies. This argument was also taken up without questioning by the Arabic press which sees globalization as skipping over state and nation as well.16 It should be noted also that in several Arab countries, the movement to privatize public enterprises, which was then an essential requirement among adjustment measures, was identified with a gradual disengagement of the state in the public sector. This objection, however, could not be exploited further by the Arabic press not only because of its negative effects on social dialogue but also because the state essentially continues to retain a significant influence on markets, even after SAPs, and has even seen its power grow stronger as the effects of globalization on society became more and more perceptible. Indeed, for the threatened industry and commerce sectors the state became the last resort for maintaining social peace and could not afford to relinquish its responsibilities towards society. This leads, despite all the reforms calling for a weaker state, to a more statist conception of the economy insofar as the policy of disengagement of the state has increased paradoxically the importance of networks within government administration as the only means of access to financial and economic resources.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, which suggests that globalization is necessarily synonymous with loss of state sovereignty, the role of government has become more central than ever in Arab countries. The state in this region initially pursued a policy of economic reforms, whose principles were laid down in the 1970s and which today have taken on another form in accordance with the expectations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to encourage investment and the development of a dynamic private sector through incentive legislation. Meanwhile, the state is pulling out of the economy through an extensive program of privatization of public enterprises while continuing to show some reluctance to abandon certain emblems of its power such as the banking sector. Fearing the consequences of these reforms on employment, the state resists any abandonment of its role as social regulator and the largest employer in the country. The extreme narrowness of its safety margin at this level is the cause of the ambiguity of its attitude because the reorganization of the national economy requires the maintenance of a strong state. Neither the decline of the state nor democratic openness and economic liberalization will lead to its massive disengagement: its role changes without really being reduced when it does not simply strengthen its grip on all means of control and pressure. Insofar as the power of business leaders is based on their links with the state, they have no interest in seeing it lose its prerogatives, just as the state bases its legitimacy on the economic success of this elite that constitutes one of its supporters.

Conclusion

Through this survey of articles in Arabic we can distinguish several types of discourse. First is a discourse that, in most cases, is striking in its theoretical nature and its lack of relation to the economic and social realities of the countries in question. The authors of the articles confine themselves to denouncing globalization without judicious reference to data abundantly supplied by international institutions. A fictitious globalization focused on culture, religion, and identity and whose perpetuation is guaranteed by an Arab readership increasingly sensitive and receptive to these themes, has emerged and hides an economic and political globalization currently bringing deep changes. Second is a discourse that shows that Arabs do not live globalization within a collective political, cultural, or economic framework, but rather live it in their dispersal and their fragility, which is why the phenomenon appears as a misfortune and a disaster. Beyond the incantations of the press on the necessary but still hypothetical Arab unity, nobody expresses any concern for the other.

In the absence of reliable information — especially information that allows the reader to evaluate the degree of integration of the economy of each country in the globalization process with respect to level of trade liberalization, growth and unemployment rates, income gaps, price indexes, and so on — the articles consulted, whether pro- or anti-globalization, represent the views of social actors without reflecting the state of public opinion. Thus adaptation to globalization is almost never discussed and rarely is the question of the best way to take advantage of globalization raised. For a press that still rests in the bosom of political power, innocuous questions often invoke political and security issues. Thus, whatever its educational role, the Arab press is not directly ascertaining public opinion, which does not exist anyway among a disillusioned public who reads little and does not feel concerned by these issues.

We have seen how Western assessments of globalization differ from those made by the Arab press and academics. Whether celebrated or blamed, globalization remains for the West a historical fact and no one would challenge its well-founded character. It is seen as an important turning point in the evolution of Western civilization and modernity not only in matters of production and trade, marking the passage from an international economy to a global economy, but also and fundamentally on the level of the transformation of how space and time are perceived. That does not, of course, exclude the necessity felt by various Western governments to limit its negative effects or correct its imperfections.

Despite the historical importance of globalization, Arab discourse does not share the same recognition of its positive character, by admitting that globalization would be an opportunity for the countries of the South to carry out long-needed economic development. The idea that globalization could constitute the shortest path to economic growth and well-being has been rarely stressed.

Moreover, the Arab press looks away from the transformation globalization has already brought to social and economic life in the Arab countries. A lot of activities are now organized supraterritorially — if not in the matter of democracy, factory building, or capital transfer, at least in the matter of information, communications, and consumerism. All these changes have exerted an amazing impact on their societies.

How then one can remain indifferent to all this? How can one explain that in a world where countries are more and more interconnected and where the structures of dependency are more and more obvious, how the gap between the two modes of perception is getting wider and wider? We can run the risk of giving some answers. For both Arabic academia and the mass media the term "globalization" does not have the same meaning as it does for their Western counterparts. The word does not invoke a challenge. It is just another term for successive historical conditions of domination, exploitation, and dependency. For the people of the South then capitalism, as an expression of these, has always been global.

Such Arab discourse on globalization is still imprisoned in a long-gone epistemological framework — one that equates globalization with colonialism, neo-colonialism,17 or imperialism — despite the fact that the present situation can in no way be compared to those historical contexts.

Globalization is not colonization. Colonization is a policy by which a foreign state extends its sovereignty on foreign territories outside its national boundaries in order to benefit from its resources and to ensure a market for its products. Colonization was also carried out with the purpose of spreading civilization in the name of a superior race.

Globalization is also not imperialism — the plundering of the wealth of independent countries by the former colonial empire through economic or political changes. The dynamics and change associated with globalization can no longer be explained within the interpretative systems inherited from the 1970s. Is the Third World still relevant? This expression has become more and more conventional while at the same time less and less adequate.

After independence, former colonies implemented a series of development plans, mainly through a socialist economic policy, which failed to raise the standard of living at rates close to those of market economies. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the economic situation worsened in most of the Arab countries, a widespread conviction emerged that free trade would accelerate their pace of growth. Freedom is here the watchword: free market, free trade, freedom of capital, freedom of information are the symbols of the globalization process, the necessary means conducive to efficiency and flexibility. For the first time globalization is seen as a voluntary commitment by the state, although supervised by international financial institutions through the implementation of SAPs. For Arab intellectuals this means that once more decisions are imposed on their countries. This conclusion in turn feeds the argument that colonialism is still at work.

Under these circumstances, capitalism, in its multiple versions, has always then operated to the detriment of the South. Thus what was considered in the West to be a new step in the progress and prosperity of humanity, kept, for the South, was a new form of domination. In the view of the Arabs, globalization has reinforced imperialism by increasing labour exploitation, weakening the workforce and marginalizing the South further.

But despite these attacks against economic globalization their arguments remained weak, tainted as they were with thirdworldist ideology. For this reason Arabic discourse evaded economic globalization to focus mainly on its cultural aspect as a threat to Arab identity and Islamic religion. The determination shown in denouncing globalization as a danger to the Arab-Muslim culture and national identity took the most contradictory forms: secularist, democratic, socialist, Arab nationalist, Islamic fundamentalist. In this context, Arab-Muslim civilization is opposed to a barbarian globalization that seeks to put world civilizations on an equal footing but under the cultural domination of Western civilization. In this way liberalism and free trade could not be synonymous with universal civilization.

Postscript

This review of articles in the Arab press also reveals something about the status of intellectuals in the Arab world. When the latter speak of globalization, they also speak about themselves,18 about the uncertainty of their condition, the difficulty they have to delineate an autonomous area from that of the state, which explains their hesitation and the variations in their positions, sometimes contesting and other times rallying to modernity. So far the only party they have belonged to is that of Arab nationalism and thirdworldism, apart from the fact that there is no Third World anymore and that the territory which remained for two decades the expression of its economic and identity crisis has lost its convergence with labour movements, socialist militants, and progressive states.19 Globalization has then stripped them of their ideology, especially when, on the grounds of anti-globalism, they might easily be overtaken by the Islamists who have stronger arguments and benefit from a broader audience.

For a short period, capitalism has been challenged by thirdworldism inspired by the global model of socialism. The paradigm has been one of opposition of the South against the North or the periphery against the centre. The SAPs put an end to the South whose economy has abandoned import substitution in favour of export substitution.

Multinational corporations, as the principal agent of globalization in the South,20 hence represented themselves as the primary agents of economic development. This means that for the South the perception of globalization is different from that of the North. It is in this level of the critique of globalization that we perceive an absence of epistemological break between the discourse of the North and that of the South. Since nothing changed, the intellectuals of the South kept denouncing globalization viewed as the power of transnational corporations or FDI, although these instruments were unanimously acknowledged as the main tools of economic growth. To quote Ulrich Beck (2005), "the threat is no longer of an invasion but of the non-invasion of investors, or the threat of their withdrawal. There is only one thing worse than being overrun by big multinationals: not being overrun by multinationals."

The Arabic discourse is still governed by the geographical space defined by the Arab nation-state. On the economic level, this state did not lose its autonomous regulatory power despite the restructuring of production and privatization policy. The nation-state has not seen its range of maneuver reduced in spite of the economic and political reforms imposed by international organizations. On the contrary, because of these very reforms, like deregulation and privatization, the state has seen its power enhanced since it was called upon to intervene in order to impose or to lighten certain negative effects of globalization like unpopular measures or to control the intervention of NGOs in its internal security policy especially when most of the political regimes lack legitimacy. Globalization did not undermine the authority of conventional political structures; on the contrary it has enhanced repression and control.

What now characterizes discourse on globalization is the emergence of new forms of political action outside states. As globalization is a process where all relations whether economic, political, or social are reshaped — relations to the state and authority, command in enterprise, and family life. In the Arab states, the life of the individual at the political level takes place in the space of expression tolerated by the public authorities whose scope of intervention is now extended to all areas of social life.

In renouncing any ambition to think globally, Arabic intellectuals refrain from seeking alternatives to the crisis of the South in facing globalization. This requires them to build a new space for reflection and action, to redefine their identity, and to understand globalization as a transnational reality and not only from the narrow prism of the Arab nation. By removing all concepts from their traditional framework of the nation, be it Algerian, Egyptian, or Arabic, globalization will no longer be seen as an evil against which we must oppose, because, to quote Beck (2005) again, globalization must be understood as "organized irresponsibility." By being unable to access this level of understanding the Arab intellectual will keep on dividing the world between "them" and "us."

Works Cited

Aouida, Jacques Ould. 2008. Croissance et réformes dans les pays arabes méditerranéens. Paris: Karthala.

Beck, Ulrich. 2005. The cosmopolitan state: Redefining power in the global age. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 18 (3-4): 143-59.

Fougier, Eddy. 2001. Perception de la mondialisation en France et aux Etats-Unis. Politique Etrangère 66 (3): 569-85.

Pages, Delphine and Vignal, Leila. 1998. Formes et espaces de la mondialisation en Egypte. Une lecture spatiale des changements récents. [Globalization in Egypt. A spatial interpretation of recent changes]. Géocarrefour 73 (3): 247-58.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2002. Arab human development report 2002. Creating opportunities for future generations. New York: Regional Bureau for Arab States.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2003. Arab human development report 2003. Building a knowledge society. New York: Regional Bureau for Arab States.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2004. Arab human development report 2004. Toward freedom in the Arab world. New York: Regional Bureau for Arab States.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2005. Arab human development report 2005. Towards the rise of women in the Arab world. New York: Regional Bureau for Arab States.

Védrine, Hubert. 2007. Rapport pour le Président de la République sur la France et la mondialisation. Septembre 2007.

Notes

1. These are: al-Quds al-'Arabî (pan-Arabist daily published in London); al-Shark al-Awsat (daily of Saudi obedience published in London); al-Hayât (daily published in Beirut); al-Sabâh (daily published in Tunis); al-Nâhar (daily published in Beirut); al-Ahrâm (national daily published in Cairo); al-Yawm (daily published in Saudi Arabia); Rose al-Youssef (weekly independent journal published in Egypt); Réalités (weekly journal published in Tunis).

2. "Globalization and Identity," Sila, Morocco, April 1998; "Globalization and Cultural Identity," Cairo, April 1998; "Globalization and National Identity," Hicham Ghasîb; "Al-'awlama wa l-hawiyya l-qawmiyya" Amman's Seventh Forum on Culture and Development, 2000; International Symposium on Globalization and Trade, Beirut, November 2001; al-Shark al-Awsat, November 2001.

3. Chedly Ayari, al'arab wa l-awlama, wahmun am haqîqa? [The Arabs and globalization. Myth or reality?], al-Sabâh, 28 June 1997; and Al-siyâdât al-wataniyya fîmuwâjahat al-'awlama [National sovereignties facing globalization], conference held 1 March 2002, Tunis, 2002; Samir Amin: Interview with Ibrahîm al-Arîs, al-Hayât, 23 January 2006.

4. Ghassân al-Imâm, awlamat al-'arab [The globalization of the Arabs], al-Shark al-Awsat, 7 April1998.

5. "En attente de développement" or "expected development" is the latest phrase to describe Third World countries. It was coined by Hubert Védrine (2007).

6. Haytham ibn Jawâd al-Haddâd, al-awlama al-lughawiyya [Linguistic globalization]. www.albayan-magazine.com/files/global/04.htm.

7. Al-Sayyid Yasîn, al-'awlama wa zahf al-thaqâfa al-istihlâkiyya [Globalization and the invasion of consumerism], 27 December 2007. www.alarabiya.net/views/2007/12/27/43433.html

8. Moh. Ibn Moh. Safar thaqâfatunâ wa l-awlama' [Our culture and the globalization], al-Hayât, 4 April 2006.

9. Mustapha al-faqî, Al-'arab bayna al-taqaddum al-ilmî wattahawwul al-ijtimâ'î [The Arabs between scientific progress and social change], al-Hayât, 11 April 2006.

10. al-fadhâ'iyyât al-'arabiyya wa l-ta'addudiyya al-I'lâmiyya' [Arab TV channels and the pluralism of information], al-Shark al-Awsat, 17 June 2000.

11. Amîn Tâhirî, 'al-dîn fî 'asr al-awlama [Religion in the age of globalization], al-Shark al-Awsat, 28 February 1998.

12. Amîn Tâhirî, 'al-dîn fî 'asr al-'awlama', al-Shark al-Awsat, 22 February 1998. Cheikh Mukhtâr al-Sallâmî, al-islâmu wa l-'awlama, Conference on Islam and Globalization, al-Sabâh, 22 January 1998.

13. Les syndicats vont-ils disparaître?, Réalités, no. 792, 7 March 2001.

14. 'L'entreprise maghrébine est-elle menacée par la mondialisation?, Colloque international, Réalités, no. 698, 29 April 1999.

15. awlamat al-iqtisâd wa ta'thîrâtuhâ wa dawr al-naqâbât' [Globalization of the economy and the role of the trade unions], al-Sha'b, Tunisia, 21 December 1996.

16. Moh. Abid al-Jâbrîî 'mafâhîm fî l-fikr al-mu'âsir' [Concepts in contemporary thought], al-Shark al-Awsat, 7 February 1997. And also al-awlama wa l-hawiyya bayna 'âlamayn [Globalization and identity between two worlds], www.mokarabat.com/m732.htm.

17. Fârouk Juwayda, al-awlama hal hiyya isti'mârun jadîd? [Is globalization a neo-colonialism?], Al-Ahrâm, 9 December 2001.

18. Ma'mûn Fendî, awlamatuhum wa hiwârunâ [Their globalization and our debate], al-Shark al-Awsat, 8 July 2001.

19. Claude Liauzu, Du tiers-mondisme à la dérive des continents, Le Monde Diplomatique, May 2005.

20. Sa'd al-Chalmânî, al 'awlama wa l-dawla al-qawmiyya: nihâyat marhala wa nihât târîkh' [Globalization and the national state. The end of an era and the end of history], al-'Arab, 15 October 1998.

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