Arab Nationalism
HARVEY: The global march against child labor was born in a conversation
that I
had with Kailash Satyarthi-- the very charismatic leader of the move
to bring
children out of bonded labor in India-- the head of the South Asian
Coalition on
Child Servitude. KAILASH: We have ample proof that the
children are being used
as slaves. They are bought and sold. They are
tortured. They are confined to
workplace. They are not able to leave their
jobs. HARVEY: These are kids working
in brick kilns, working in farms as a
part of bonded farm labor, working in
granite quarries; kids in sexual
slavery, or being trafficked across national or
state boundaries for sexual
purposes. Those are the kinds of kids that this
global march is an effort to
highlight. MARCHERS: Global March! HARVEY: So we
decided that the global
march was a way by which we could bring international
pressure to country
after country. This was not just a simple protest. Along the
way, organizers
met with community groups like this one to try to link local
concerns with
the March’s broader goals, which resonate with people in
Thailand.
They’re still reeling from the collapse of their currency.
SULAK:
Economic growth must take human dignity, human rights,
environmental balance,
into consideration. In the wake of Thailand’s
financial crisis, Buddhist
Scholar Sulok Sivaraksa, like many activists,
sees growing poverty in human
rights terms. SULAK: We have more prostitutes
than monks. We have child
laborers. We destroy our environment. The people in
Bangkok itself, 20% live in
slums. And many people don’t even live in the
slums, they live under the
bridges and so on and so forth. And yet people
feel these are not human rights
issues. The Global March is just one new
cross-border tactic--an illustration of
how globalization from above leads to
a globalized resistance from below.
KAILASH: But in the case of children,
in the case of poor people, they have no
calculations of their profit
margins. They always think of their compassion,
their love, sharings, taking
care of each other. So that is the real
globalization. So I believe that we
have to learn from those children how to
globalize the world. Whether we
learn from innocent children, worldly business
leaders, or concerned human
rights activists, one thing is clear, globalization
is here to stay. In a
world that is becoming more connected and interdependent,
a curious
collection of politically strange bedfellows has begun to coalesce in
a
search for solutions to complex global challenges. In the process, they
are
discovering some surprising things about this world-- and about
themselves.
Amnesty International’s Pierre Sane. PIERRE SANE: We do not
expect business to
become a human rights defender. We know that if business
adopts a human rights
language and behavior, it will be as a means to the
long-term objective of
securing greater and greater profits. For us, human
rights is an end, it’s an
absolute. So there is a journey that we can go
together. There is some tactical
alliances that we can develop. GOULDING:
It’s perfectly possible to have a
two-track approach to this where some
people very properly focus on the business
engagement issues and others focus
on the human rights agenda. Many companies in
the global marketplace are
trying to become what they call global corporate
citizens, and some even say
human rights are now part of their business
principles. Shell Oil's Alan
Detheridge DETHERIDGE: Companies like Shell have a
role to play in promoting
human rights. Not just the rights of its staff, not
just the rights of
contractors who work for us, but promoting rights more
generally, and
certainly within the communities in and amongst whom we operate.
As
corporate leaders grapple with how to respond to human rights
challenges,
human rights activists are abandoning their traditional focus on
abuses by
governments. They are now confronting the many impacts of
globalization that we
have explored in this report. GAY MCDOUGALL: There's
been an explosion of human
rights organizations all around the world that are
now in touch with each
another, and are now beginning to talk more and more
about common problems,
common strategies. It's no longer just the question of
a human rights
organization that focuses solely on the problems in their
country. But they’re
seeing the link between the problems in their country
and problems across
borders, regionally and internationally. Both
Globalization’s proponents and
critics, see the fight for human rights as a
major challenge. HORMATS: I think
there has been a lot of improvement in
human rights around the world. This is
not to say that there is perfection
and it's not to say there are no problems.
But I think one of the great
benefits that globalization has provided the world
is improvements in human
well being. THABO MBEKI: Well, I think there is a very
good thing that is
happening in the whole international economic debate.
There’s issues of
poverty, of a better life, of equity. Those issues are
coming back onto the
agenda even of the international corporate world. A
movement away from merely
what governs our decisions and behavior is the bottom
line and that's it.
NADER: This is global trade without global law, without
global democracy. And
if you have global trade and investment dominated by a few
giant
corporations, who pit one country against another without a rule of
law,
you’re going to have increasing pressure–both in the first world and in
the
thrid world —standards of living and standards of justice. TUTU: I hold
to the
view that this is a moral universe. Goodness matters as it did forever
in the
past. It will continue to do so. Truth matters. Corruption matters. I
mean
we’ve seen, we’ve seen why some of the financial institutions in
Thailand,
Indonesia, have gone under. It's been basically, ultimately,
that they have
flouted ethical rules, not so much just financial rules. It
has been ethical
rules. I have no qualms myself. I have no deep anxiety that
we are suddenly
going to become an amoral society because of globalization.
Still questions
remain: Will globalization advance democracy and human
rights, or will corporate
power triumph above all else? And, how can we as
citizens of the world get
involved and help provide solutions? C.
HUNTER-GAULT: In this era of
globalization, these are not academic questions
but flash points for continuing
debate. A debate that will determine the
values that will shape the world of the
21st Century.