Globalization Unchecked: How Alien Media is Suffocating
Real Culture
24 November 2009By
Ramzy Baroud
A Muslim family sits across of me in café, in a
largely Muslim Asia country. An older woman shyly
hunches over and desperately trying to avoid eye
contact with the giant plasma screen TV, blazing loud
music on the popular music video channel, MTV. The
scantily dressed presenter introduces her ‘top song’
for the week. Beyonce, dressed in so very little,
annoyingly reiterates that she is “a single lady.” The
old woman’s son is mesmerized by what he sees. He pays
no attention to his mother, young wife or even his own
son who wreaks havoc in the coffee shop. The man’s
T-Shirt reads: “what the fxxx are you looking at?”
Respecting the message on his T-Shirt, I try to keep
to myself, but find it increasingly difficult. The
wife is completely covered, all but her face. The
contradictions are ample, overwhelming even.
The attire of the family, the attitude of the ladies
and even the man with the provocative T-Shirt are all
signs of the cultural schizophrenia that permeates
many societies in the so-called Third World. It’s a
side effect of globalization that few wish to talk
about.
It’s almost always about trade, foreign investment,
capital flow and all the rest. But what about culture,
identity, traditions and ways of life; do these things
amount to anything?
True, Globalization has various manifestations. If
viewed strictly from economic terms, then the debate
delves into trade barriers, protectionism and tariffs.
Powerful countries demand smaller countries to break
down all trade barriers, while maintaining a level of
protectionism over their own. Smaller countries,
knowing that they cannot do much to hide from the
hegemonic nature of globalization, form their own
economic clubs, hoping to negotiate fairer deals. And
the economic tug-of-war continues, between diplomacy
and threats, dialogue and arm twisting. This is the
side of globalization with which most of us are
familiar.
But there is another side of globalization, one that
is similarly detrimental to some countries, and
profitable to others: cultural globalization - not
necessarily the domination of a specific culture, in
this case Western culture, over all the rest - but
rather the unbridgeable disadvantage of poorer
countries, who lack the means to withstand the
unmitigated takeover of their traditional ways of life
by the dazzling, well-packaged and branded ‘culture’
imparted upon them around the clock.
What audiences watch, read and listen to in most
countries outside the Western hemisphere is not truly
Western culture in the strict definition of the term,
of course. It’s a selective brand of a culture, a
reductionst presentation of art, entertainment, news,
and so on, as platforms to promote ideas that would
ultimately sell products. For the dwarfed
representation of Western culture, it’s all about
things, tangible material values that can be obtained
by that simple and final act of pulling out one’s
credit card. To sell a product, however, media also
sell ideas, often one sided, and create unjustifiable
fascinations with ways of life that hardly represent
natural progression for many vanishing cultures and
communities around the world.
Recently in some Gulf country, a few Turkish teenagers
turned an Internet café into a shouting match as they
engaged one another in some violent computer game. I
desperately tried to mind my own business, but their
shrieks of victory and defeat were deafening. “Kill
the Terrorist”, one of them yelled in English, with a
thick Turkish accent. The “Rs” in “terrorists” rolled
over his tongue so unnaturally. For a moment, he was
an “American”, killing “terrorists”, who, bizarrely
looked more Turkish than American. As I walked out, I
glanced at the screen. Among the rubble, there was a
mosque, or what was left of it. The young Turkish
Muslim was congratulated by his friends for his handy
work.
There is nothing wrong with exchanges of ideas, of
course. Cultural interactions are historically
responsible for much of the great advancements and
evolution in art, science, language, even food and
much more. But, prior to globalization, cultural
influences were introduced at much slower speed. It
allowed societies, big and small, to reflect,
consider, and adjust to these unique notions over
time. But the globalization of the media is unfair. It
gives no chance for mulling anything over, for
determining the benefits or the harms, for any sort of
value analysis. News, music and even pornography are
beamed directly to all sorts of screens and gadgets.
When Beyonce sings she is a ‘single lady’, the whole
world must know, instantly. This may sound like a
harmless act, but the cultural contradictions
eventually morph into conflicts and clashes, in
figurative and real senses.
More, it makes little sense, for example, that Asian
audiences are consumers of Fox News and Sky News,
while both are regarded as rightwing media platforms
in their original markets. And what can Nepali
television, for example, do to control media moguls
and morphing media empires all around? Young people
grow, defining themselves according to someone else’s
standards, thus the Turkish teenager, temporarily
adopting the role of the “American”, blows up his own
mosque.
Globalization is not a fair game, of course. Those
with giant economies get the lion’s share of the
‘collective’ decision-making. Those with more money
and global outlook tend to have influential media,
also with global outlook. In both scenarios, small
countries are lost between desperately trying to
negotiate a better economic standing for themselves,
while hopelessly trying to maintain their cultural
identity, which defined their people, generation after
generation throughout history.
The Muslim family eventually left the coffee shop. The
husband watched MTV throughout his stay; the young
wife, clicked endlessly on her iPhone, and the older
woman glanced at the TV from time to time, then
quickly looked the other way. One is certain that a
few years ago, that family would have enjoyed an
entirely different experience. Alas, a few years from
today, they might not even sit at the same table.
- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author
and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has
been published in many newspapers, journals and
anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The
Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's
Struggle" (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming
book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s
Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available for
pre-orders on Amazon.com.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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