Sadat Lecture for Peace
Last night I went to our university's Anwar Sadat's lecture for Peace, given by Dr Mohamed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Before I say more, let me just say that it was a wonderful lecture. His ideas and view of the world corresponded to mine very well, save for the fact that he could verbalize them a thousand times better than me.
El Baradei is from Egypt and has been in his current position for the 2 other terms. Of course anyone who has been in such a position for so long has to be a great politian and diplomat. He won the 2005 Nobel peace prize.
His lecture was about the state of the world today, with special emphasis on the middle east. The following are some of ideas I picked up at his lecture:
- paraphrasing someone else: the world has never been more at peace (ie fewer wars) and yet less secure.
- there are 4 main reasons for this lack of security - for the world to become a more secure place, we need to overcome:
(1) poverty, a necessity for achieving lasting peace;
(2) Corruption and lack of democracy;
(3) Injustice - the balance between the haves and the have nots for wealth and power;
(4) Artificial polarization that is created because of for example, religion.
- The current islam versus the west clash that has emerged is not because of the clash of different religios values, rather it is inequality. It is easy for the downtrodden to blame their situation on religion.
- Globalization and the interdependence of nations that is supposed to brinig opportunities for all, also has the bad effect that it allows the exploitation of the poorer nations. Globalization has also opened a window so that people can see what they can also have, allowing nations to have artificial wants.
- Security organizations must be reformed to match the emerging threats. For example, the difference between nuclear profileration versus nuclear disarmament.
- Threats from the west drive countries such as north korea and iran to have nuclear weapons. (G: I guess this goes back to the disarmament idea)
- Quoting someone else: "Human security is too important to be left to governments".
6 comments:
Globalization accomodates for the trade of products with little trouble by boundaries. The same should hold then for human labor. Companies should be able to hire anyone from anywhere in the world.
But that is not always good right? By removing cheap labor from a poor country, you are taking away from the country, not adding to it.
The idea should be to make the country stronger, not look at the country as a source for cheap labor. El Baradei specifically mentioned that yesterday.
By allowing cheap labor movement, many good things will happen to the poor country: First, less labor remain in the poor country and thus the marginal productivity of labor goes up in the poor country; this means higher wages for them. Second, the migrated labor might send home some remittance. Third, less laborors at home country and thus better effects of (if any) welfare nets at home.
In the foreign coutry though, influx of cheap labor, will drag the wages down (along with the final prices). So the only loser is the labor in the foreign country.
I'm reciting basic international tarde theories. But if you look into the rich countries globalization policies, most of them refuse to open up to inflow of cheap labor.
The talk sounds very interesting - I wish I had been there :-) ...
I think there just possibly two things I wonder about -
- Its about globalization leading to exploitation of poor nations. I'm wondering what economic model we should follow - given that prior to this many countries were just exploited by some colonial super-power. And we can keep drawing this line back further in history - and go all the way upto some ancient human community with lil trade and interaction with the world - which is better ? I guess the difference between the rich and the poor has always been huge - my question is really - are the poor getting overall richer or poorer day by day ... Its a lil mindboggling when one thinks at the level of the planet..
- The clash between the islamic world and the west - hasn't it been going on for a while? I do remember reading about the Ottomon empire / the crusades etc. Do you think we should just view this as part of continium or as a completely new clash?
I'm also confused shall we say when I read about the middle-east being very poor - because many of these countries sit on oil - which makes them rich as a nation ... what is happening to this wealth? is it really appropriate to label this also a war between the haves (the west) and the have nots ( the middle east) - I think of the middle east as the haves ... I understand that much of htis money does not reach the people of the land - so is this then a fault of the west or a fault of their own governments ...
..I'm going to end up tying myself in knots ... I feel there is so much about human interaction which I can hardly grasp ...
-Globalization of hand labor is good... for my understanding.
The problem right now is that cheap hand labor is KEPT on a country. Multinationals have the main manufacturers on the cheap hand labor country, then ship the goods, since their own workers can not buy them.
If you allow for all this company the ability to do produce "cheap" everywhere... what would happen?
I'm actually interested in whatever he said about lack of democracy?
I'm sure he didn't mean to impose it. But those he really have that much hope in democracy? Seriously? Can it work in anything that is bigger than 100 people? Seriously?
- I'm pro Saladin.
And I blame the governments, I'm guessing that the middle east have the same issues that they sell the oil, but in the end they have to buy the process product right?
And if they sell the oil higher, they will have to buy the end product higher. So, what is the government plan to "catchup" and be able to compete with the west?
Brasil, I think, has a nice example were they are totally not dependent on oil, I have to revised this later, but I think they are more pro (Ethanol or what is the alcohol cars are using as fuel?) which they produce themselves.
And... lost my train of thoughts, ok I'll come back later to much seriousness for now
I agree with jeerjark about her comments on Globalization and labor. So far Globalization means Rich countries will impose their products in poor countries, and in their own countries, they will use the cheap labor of other countries. I think the paradigm will shift towards a positive equilibrium if the same ease of flow for products is allowed for human labor, since salaries and wages would become more even throughout the world. I believe rich countries are scared of this because they don't want to compete on the same grounds with other hard working people.
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