[asia-apec 31] globalisation

[RVerzola]

REVOLT AGAINST GLOBALIZATION
                          by Roberto Verzola

In the same way that colonization was the "trend" one hundred years
ago, globalization is, today.

Government authorities, the media, and businesses say that
globalization is inevitable, and that we must adjust to it, because we
have no other choice.

Had Bonifacio, Rizal, the Silangs, and the rest of our national heroes
accepted colonization as inevitable, there would have been no
Philippine Revolution. Had they accepted that they had no choice but
to adjust, we would have remained a colony of Spain.

They became heroes precisely because they saw the evils of
colonization, and made that momentous decision to revolt against a
colonial power.

Today, the colonial powers have been replaced by global corporations.
Global corporations feast on our natural resources, human resources,
and national wealth. They displace farmers from their land, workers
from their jobs, and communities from their roots. Even the peoples of
developed countries suffer from their profit-hungry rule. Global
corporations today virtually rule the world.

Globalization means the rule of global corporations. It means
decisions about our lives being made in corporate boardrooms in the
U.S., Europe and Japan, instead of our local community councils. It
means powerlessness and suffering for the small and the weak. It means
the break up of our communities and the rape of our environment to
serve the human and raw material requirements of global production for
the global market. Its consequences, such as the collapse of our food
security and the emergence of global environmental crises like
pollution and global warming, may turn out to be even worse than
colonization.

Like colonization before it, globalization is neither desirable, nor
inevitable, nor so powerful that it cannot be stopped.

Like our great grandparents who revolted against colonization, we need
today to make that momentous leap of judgment which our revered heroes
managed to do in their own time, one hundred years ago.

We need a revolt against globalization.