Globalization Has United Arab world
Just as the modern information revolution has turned the world into a ‘global village’ as described by the Canadian sociologist Marshal McLuhan, it has also helped indirectly in unifying the various nationalities that make up the world, enhanced their cultures, and ironically strengthened their identities.
In other words, globalisation has sometimes produced its opposite, which may anger those who wanted to reshape the world to become a carbon copy of their culture.
It is true that the information technology revolution represented by satellites, the internet, and other media has eliminated the divide that separates the various parts of the world, and transformed it into one single sphere.
At the same time it unintentionally reconnected the disconnected links between various national blocks. In other words, instead of melting world cultures into one culture, it created anti-globalisation obstacles.
There is no doubt about the fact that the internet, for instance, is open to all the people of the world. It is also true that satellite technology has made television channels of the world available to all, but if we look at the effect of the new media we will find that it has been most seen within certain world blocks, which goes against the grain of globalisation itself.
The world might meet up technologically, but it seems to remain independent and disconnected culturally no matter how powerful the means of globalisation are. And so it seems that globalisation is more effective regionally and nationally than internationally.
Although an Arab person, for instance, can surf all the sites of the internet, he or she will end up hooked to local sites, the same as an American or a European does. It goes without saying that the favourite ten sites for an Arab are Arabic sites.
The same would apply to satellite channels. Arab nationals inside and outside the Arab world tend to watch national or pan-Arab TV stations, not only because of the language, but also because of the cultural and national factor.
If we look at the channels watched by Arab viewers from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arab Gulf, we would find that they are all Arabic channels. It is true that a satellite receiver offers viewers over a thousand channels to watch, but an Arab person tends to watch no more than ten or twenty channels all of which are Arabic. One would hardly find a foreign channel among the top ten favourite channels watched by Arab viewers.
It is true that the Arab intelligensia might watch an English or a French channel, but that remains the exception, and not the rule, as the highly educated have always been cosmopolitan irrespective of globalisation.
Just as the tools of globalisation have helped in bridging the gap between the Arab peoples, and strengthened their ties culturally, it has also helped the Islamists who, thanks to globalisation, have become more internationalised. They have, for instance, made excellent use of the internet to fight the masters of globalisation themselves. Were it not for the internet and satellite channels, Al Qaida, led by Osama Bin Laden, would have found it more difficult to be well-known and effective internationally.
Even the Arabs living outside the Arab world, namely in the West, who speak the languages of the Western countries they live in, and who are supposed to have adapted to western cultures, tend to watch Arab channels reaching them by satellite.
It is no wonder then that France, for instance, has at one point imposed restrictions on Arabs wanting to have satellite receivers for fear of creating ghettoes, which goes against the French policy of integration.
It is very ironic that globalisation has reproduced the ghetto culture in the West instead of globalisation peoples of the world and diluting their cultures. It is no wonder that certain European countries began to watch foreign communities closely. They also started studying the impact of certain Arab satellite channels on Arabs living in Europe.
In a word, the effect of globalisation turned out to be topsy-turvy as far as the Arab world is concerned. Ironically, the West unintentionally atoned for its colonial policies based on the well-known ruse ‘divide and rule’. Instead of weakening the Arab identity by globalising or Americanising it, the new Western technology has unified the Arab world.
It is true that the Arabs are very disunited politically, but they have become more united culturally thanks to globalisation. In brief, Arabisation, funnily enough, seems to have defeated globalisation by utilising the means of the latter.
Faisal Al Qasim
Gulf News