Globalization was projected as the great leap of human evolution in a linear forward march from tribes to nations to countries and to global markets. People’s identities and contexts were projected to move from the national to the global and from the personal to global. Globalization promised to honor diversity, human and infrastructural development, prosperity, peace and security for all through an inclusive process.
However, in practice, globalization has exclusively promoted monocultures of the dominant civilizations further oppressing and marginalizing people through widespread poverty along with further exploiting and militarizing the planet and its peoples. Now this force has become ‘Globalism’ and it is rapidly consuming the Earth.
As Globalism unfolds, it has exposed the bankruptcy of the dominant world order which is leading to political, social, economic, and ecological non-sustainability, with societies, economies and ecosystems disintegrating and breaking down. Let’s shift our attention to address globalization at the center of the problems. The ethical contradictions and the political bankruptcy of Globalism are based on reducing all life forms to commodities, including human lives and people’s identities, to mere consumers in the global market place.
As a result, the human capabilities and capacities as producers and makers of their own culture are disappearing and are being consumed by dominant forces in world politics. More specifically, the inherent identity as members of communities with their natural rights and cultural heritage are disappearing as well. This political bankruptcy has also led to anti-democratic formations, anti-peoples’ legislation, compromised the rule of law, and poor governance. Instead of acting on conventions of public trust and inclusive participatory principles of democratic accountability, it has led governments usurping power from parliaments, legislative assemblies, regional and local governments, and local communities.
The new world-order of dominant and economic forces has only facilitated the growth of injustice, militarization and non-sustainability to new proportions and dimensions never experienced before by humanity. The diversion of Globalization by Globalism has added a new dimension of formidable burdens to the 21st century. The impact of these burdens on indigenous people living in third and fourth world nations is felt acutely as poverty and hunger increases, economic and political power is being centralized, peoples sovereignty is being transferred to corporations, commons are being converted into commodities, and the increasing undemocratic processes of privatization, deregulation and militarization are perpetuating a tsunami of insecurity and destabilization.
The non-sustainability and political bankruptcy of the ruling world order and Globalism are fully evident. The need for holistic alternatives to address these conditions has never been stronger. Certainly any approach needs to be rooted in the community to recovery the collective. It calls for a sustainable democracy movement that requires new thinking that shifts our production systems and consumption patterns away from the existing poverty-creating global markets. This shift for indigenous people’s survival must focus from Globalism to indigenization of power away from corporations to peoples.
The indigenous knowledge system needs to enable indigenous peoples to overcome the false narrative and thinking that unlimited power has solved the problem of production. The rediscovery of one’s roots, identity, common humanity, the indigenous knowledge and respect for their land and nature, the recognition of the richness of the human cultures and the need for a pluralistic system and society is at the heart of our collective survival. It is also the foundation for shaping and building a stable, inclusive, and fully participatory democratic society.
