Firstly, I’d like to say that I will not be presenting a lecture in the scientific sense, but rather will be reviewing a group of ideas and topics in a discussable format, in an attempt to define the path the world is heading in currently.
When we talk about the world order, then we need to distinguish between globalization and this order. World order includes numerous elements; one of these is globalization, which refers to the control of large corporations over world and national economies.
As for the other aspects of world order, they are:
1- The global trade system, which is represented in a set of conventions formulated by the World Trade Organization (WTO), who administers these conventions.
2- The global financial system, led by the Bretton Woods institutions which are: the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Then came what was to become known as the global virtual system which cannot be ignored and includes the internet in addition to the global social system and global political system.
The world order was established as a result of a cumulative process, which means that it didn’t appear suddenly and wasn’t born at any one particular stage, but many different and long phases. Also, the term “world order” isn’t new, and has been formulated over many years and through constant changes.
Globalization
We will now deal with the first of the world order phenomena, which is globalization. When this phenomenon began to appear with its distinct characteristics, the idea behind it was the creation of what would be known as global trade. I’d like to point out here that if anyone has followed the literature present in global addresses, especially that appearing in advanced nations, it would be noted that there’s been a transfer from using the word “international” to the word “global”. So the world used to talk about international relations, but then started to talk about universal relations. As for now, the word “global” is becoming more discontinued, and the world is talking once again about international relationships.
By comparing the two words, we’ll note that an international relationship is a bilateral one between one country and the next, or between one country and numerous others. As for universal relations, they include all nations of the world within a certain convention or a certain global system, like the WTO for example.
The transformation in the world order has benefited the world's main financial centers as their influence increased. This is keeping in mind the fact that talk before this globalization used to revolve around attracting foreign capital through a direct relationship. Today however, in light of disintegrating direct relations, all surplus funds have started to pour into the main financial centers such as London, Chicago and others, and consequently redistributed from those centers.
The talk we hear about sometimes regarding the focus of societies on attracting capital enters the realm of propaganda, because true distribution of funds occurs through those aforementioned centers and in accordance with financial policies that are controlled by political considerations.
The problem with globalization is that it focuses solely on creating wealth. As important as that is, it is also important to nourish the production force that will produce this wealth. But the globalization in its current format contradicts what humanity has tried to build. This is because this system has canceled the concept of services, since it did not focus on producing social services.
This means that what’s taking place in the globalization system is the buildup of a global capitalist economic system, which means a transfer from national capitalism to global capitalism. I gave an example of this in 1993 when I delivered a speech in Cairo during the convention of a conference organized by both the Egyptian president and President Gorbachev. At the time, I said that world economy was tilting towards a new direction to become a joint-stock company with all its known mechanisms, which means a board of management and committees, and in this corporation there are those who possess wealth and those who own shares in all their categories. There are those who have “class A” shares, and others who have normal shares in addition to others who don’t have shares at all. And it was for that reason that the concept of national capitalism began to be applied on a global level.
The Global Trade System
There is no doubt that we are all familiar with the WTO, which was created after numerous rounds of negotiations such as the Tokyo, Kennedy, and then Bangkok and Seattle rounds.
In Seattle in particular, the participants failed in reaching any decision as a result of disagreements that arose amongst the advanced nations themselves.
The head of the conference at the time, Ms. Fulbright, made the mistake of declaring before the meetings that this conference needed to come out with an agreement on everything or nothing at all. Activities were distributed among the formed committees, which had difficult rounds of negotiations, in particular in the field of agricultural subsidies, which led to the collapse of the talks in the end.
In my view, this failure was actually a success, because it put a stop to formulating conventions that serve developed nations exclusively.
Following this came the Doha Round, bearing in mind that its timing coincided with the British-American plans for the assault on Iraq. At that point there was a desire to issue any agreement that would help raise the morale of the worried world. Surely enough, the Doha Declaration was issued, which was good, and the summit was called the "round of growth". Unfortunately though, the most significant section in the declaration which was related to pharmaceuticals in the case of environmental disasters wasn’t applied.
As for the Cancun Round, which followed the Doha Round, another dispute arose, but this time it was between the developed and developing nations. It should be noted that 21 developing countries under the leadership of Brazil and India were able to stand up to the advanced world and state that enough was enough. There should be a balance in the global trade system, and the issue here once again was related to agricultural subsidies.
The topic of agricultural subsidies goes back to the fact that the main agreement formulated by the WTO called out for the prevention of governmental? support and that freedom of trade should be built upon equal opportunity in all areas. As for agriculture in particular, it caused a rift between nations. So if we made a comparison between the income of individuals worldwide, we’d find that over 1 billion people do not have a daily income of more than one dollar each, whereas the daily income of half the world’s population is two dollars. On the other hand, the income of a cow in Japan is 6 dollars, which means that the amount of money spent daily on a cow’s food and needs is more than what is spent on 3 people from half the world’s population. This is what created a huge disagreement between nations, as it contradicts the principles of the WTO agreement, because supporting farmers and the livestock industry in developed nations effectively means that the agriculture and livestock products will be far more superior to their counterparts in developing nations, which will in turn effectively destroying the agricultural trade of these developing nations.
At this particular point, the WTO was at a crossroads. What was new here is that this organization that was moving forcefully towards building an international system for global trade, was now almost in a state of paralysis, as it hadn’t issued any new convention in the previous 4 years, and the negotiation round on services was moving at an excruciating slow pace.
What’s even more dangerous is the current tendency of the active forces in the organization which have started to announce that there is no real need for the WTO, and that bilateral agreements would be preferable. This means moving backwards, because bilateral agreements essentially mean that the stronger party can impose its conditions on the weaker one. As for multilateral agreements, such privileges are non-existent for the stronger parties.
The Global Financial System
We have previously mentioned that this system is in fact run by the international financial institutions. Unfortunately these organizations, and particularly those involved in development, suffer from two main problems: firstly a lack of resources, because rich nations find it in their interest – and for political purposes – to use direct financing rather than financing through institutions, because by doing so they can impose their policies to achieve political gains.
As for the political decision in these financing institutions, it has become more defined and violent. What is meant here is that excuses started to appear in order for these financial decisions to be connected to decisions that aren’t solely economic, but rather based on other considerations.
We now come to the issue of selectivity. Most of us probably are aware that there is an important annual report on human development that contains excellent notes worth reviewing. We’ve noted that recently, this report has become the entire world's center of attention, and a frequent media topic of discussion. The reason for this is that it was desired to exploit what was relayed in this report for political purposes.
On our end, we aren’t criticizing this report, and we realize that its authors and administrators are experts that we respect. However, the timing of this report has come at a time where it is being utilized for political purposes, as I mentioned, and for selective purposes. For example, on the issue of education, we do not disagree that we all aspire to change education, on the basis that it includes many aspects such as accounting, economy, information technology and not only areas that have to do with peace and the prevention of terrorism. However, what happened is that the focus was only on changing the curricula to conform with those conditions, not with the prerequisites of building human ability and enhancing his skills. Therefore, these institutions have become more politicized than in the past.
The Global Virtual System
There is no doubt that the internet has become a part of the world order. We can no longer ignore this virtual world, because we must enter it.
About 17 years ago, I attended a seminar in which the US presidential advisor participated in. This advisor said that the internet will achieve for the world what the world failed to achieve in the field of democracy. This is because it will fulfill universal democracy after we failed to fulfill national democracy, because whoever enters this sea of knowledge i.e. the internet, will be equal with others. I remember he presented a slide that had a caricature of a dog sitting in front of a computer saying: “The beauty of this system is that whoever’s on the other end doesn’t know I’m a dog!”
Today however, we can say that this system, although it has been a tool for democracy, it has also become a tool for purposes other than what it was originally built for. This is because it provides information that the creators of this system do not want distributed. Perhaps the most important aspects of this system are as follows:
First: Language is probably the worst aspect of it. I met extensively with the head of ICANN in Geneva during the Summit of Knowledge conference, and we discussed how the management administering the internet is moving slowly in introducing other languages – and specifically the Arabic language - into the network. Before this system deals with national languages, it cannot be considered a truly global system.
Second: Administering the system: Perhaps few people know that the internet is represented by an establishment registered in the USA (i.e. the ICANN), and its headquarters is located in California in a small town called Marina del Rey, which is actually considered the digital capital of the world.
Due to its significance, this scheme should be managed internationally because it is a global complex that is of concern to all nations. On our end, we forwarded a request to create an entity that controls the internet, in such that it has international participation, bearing in mind that this is currently under review.
Third: Control: Unfortunately control of this still isn’t international in character, which means that developing countries for example, cannot prevent any country with the technical ability and know-how from entering its encrypted sites, at the same time developing countries cannot enter such sites of other nations.
The Global Social System
There is no doubt that the global social system is the weakest amongst other systems. In my concluding remarks at the closing session of a particular conference in Geneva, I gave an example of the digital gap, which is one of the global gaps besides the economic, scientific, language and other gaps. We are also approaching an even more difficult gap, represented in zoology, which is a technology that will lead to a vast difference among human elements themselves, which means that some humans will be superior to others in their physical and mental capabilities. This means that one category of people will possess a higher intellectual level, have better eyesight, longer life expectancy, better memories, etc.
What this means is that we’ll move from the existent gap between the poor and rich nations to a new gap that will have some nations better biologically built than others who do not have that advantage. This is the worst thing that can happen to the world. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about a remote fantasy, but in fact discussing a topic that is becoming a reality. It is an issue that worries me greatly, and I’m studying it, and trying to spread awareness on this before it reaches a disastrous level.
Getting back to the Geneva conference, I gave an example on the race that currently exists in global gaps, and I said that it is similar to the ongoing race between the lions and the gazelles, keeping in mind that the lions represent the advanced nations, and the gazelles represent the developing ones. The gazelle wakes up every morning and reminds itself that it must run faster than all the lions to stay alive, because the slowest of lions can attack if it catches up to the gazelle. So every gazelle needs to be faster than the fastest lion in order to survive, but the lion on the other hand only needs to be faster than the slowest gazelle in order to keep living.
What’s perhaps even worse is that if the gap further increases so that all the lions are faster than all the gazelles, the gazelles will diminish completely, and the whole world will be comprised of lions. This will lead to the lions fighting among themselves, and this is what seems to be absent from our thinking in relation to the developed nations. It is in these nations’ interest that the gap doesn’t get too narrow, so that us “gazelles” can continue to produce more gazelles for the lions to survive on our meat, and so the advanced world actually advises us to continue to “feed” it, otherwise we’ll supposedly be the ultimate losers.
This was a simple example that garnered a lot of attention at the conference, and was a major topic addressed in many discussions. It is an example that is an accurate reflection of reality. Anyone who thinks that the gap is decreasing is disillusioned, because it is actually getting bigger.
I have some figures that verify my claims. For example, the total support provided to nations worldwide in 2002 was 65 billion dollars, which is less than 0.2% of the global national income. The same figure is less than 10% of the agricultural support which Europe spends to bolster its agricultural products, which are essentially products that compete with our own, and which if non-existent would essentially negate the reason that developing countries need support! So I can say that developing nations can thrive on their own products if this competition didn’t exist. It can also be asserted that the subsidies provided to third world countries are also fake, because they are tied to preconditions that hinder their ability to economically compete.
Along the same lines, 1% of the world’s wealthiest people get what 57% of the world’s poorest people do. These numbers represent strange social contradictions. I relay these figures in order to refute the claims that we hear that the new world order will achieve equality, justice, equal opportunities, a narrowing of existent gaps and so on. Perhaps the simplest example is that approximately 1 billion people do not have potable water while 1 billion suffer from malnutrition.
The problem is that the world order has ignored the social side and focused on building wealth, with the claim that this order will lead to economic growth. However, economic growth does not necessarily result in a parallel growth in an individual’s income, because the income of a state is different from that of an individual. Further, the transformation from a nation of welfare to one of wealth and capital has destroyed the possibility of achieving any true social balance, neither within the state itself, nor between nations.
As for the aforementioned Geneva conference, several encouraging declarations were issued from it. But as I said in the conference, it was a shame that no mechanism for application was set in motion, or resources for execution or mechanisms for pure accounting.
I recall a project presented by developing nations, and in particular African ones, to create a financial fund where a part of the global national income would be placed, in order to close the existing social gap. The project was rejected however, because developed nations claimed that the issue wasn’t the amount of money that would be designated towards this fund, but rather whether this money would achieve the desired effect on the economic conditions of developing nations. So basically developing countries need to show results prior to getting these funds!
In the end, the project was dead before it was really even born, and other similar projects were canceled as well. The conference only came out with one good project, which was related to the issue of control over the internet.
Overall, it can be said that the world order focuses on the economic interest, and totally forgets the social interest and its by-products.
The Global Political System
On this topic in particular, I am indebted to a book released recently for George Soros, who is known as the top money man in the world, and whose attitudes and financial stances have caused global markets to shake. He is a Jew of Hungarian descent.
The truth is, I’d like to address this book from the aspect of the global political system considerations. The author says that the budget for American defense is equivalent to the budgets of defense for the entire world, and therefore there is no chance of challenging the USA even if all the nations of the world combined attempted to do so. Yet he also adds that the current injustice inherent in the political system will lead to its destruction, in accordance with what indeed took place with all previous empires.
The author hopes that this doesn’t happen to the USA, but calls for reform, by “removing this group that hijacked America” and which issued the well-known report that the “upcoming century is an American one, and therefore the USA should not squander this opportunity and should take advantage of its power to impose the values it believes in.”
To be fair, the word “impose” here does not mean assault, but since they claim to possess the truth, goodwill and power, they must – according to them, and in order to follow God’s path and satisfy their consciences - impose on the world what is in its best benefit. This means that their motive doesn’t spring out of the desire to harm others, but rather benefit them . So democracy for example is a necessity for human communities, and so the USA will impose it on societies, and the same goes for fighting corruption, and so on. Based on this, we’re approaching a new philosophy in this global political system as far as managing international affairs is concerned. This philosophy is based on a “creed”, the essence of which is that the USA possesses the truth and strength, and therefore must use this strength for “good”, which means imposing the truth it has on the rest of the world.
The bottom line is that the author summarizes the motives of American dominance as the result of a sense of responsibility towards the rest of the world.
As for us, let us put these motives and others on the side and ponder the future and how to deal with it. Overall, we can summarize the upcoming aspects as follows:
Proliferation of the culture of fear: Truth is, this phenomenon began to appear even prior to the events of September 11, 2001, but was highlighted in the media after those events. Fear exists, and requires a reaction represented in allocating a primary role to the security aspect. Further, security has become the benchmark for making political decisions. This is considered a new phenomenon and we must be aware of it. Considerations are now distributed into different categories, the first of which is dedicated to security. Also, there is the responsibility of maintaining security, through which the USA utilizes all its weapons and military might.
Also, political, economic and social decisions have all – in reality - become a security decision, and this also is a problem, because if you dig into each economic or financial decision made, you will find security motives behind it. Due to this, the bases on which decisions are made have changed, and they have become based on alternative considerations. Democracy for example, that the USA declared the war for and for its supposed application, will be placed aside, because statistics show that if true democracy was implemented based on the views of the majority, then the views of this major would not conform to American security considerations. Therefore, it is not in the interest of the USA, nor is it the “truth” that it claims to own, to apply this democracy in certain countries. The “truth” in the American definition means that the USA knows what the underlying “interest” is, which is based upon its conviction, because through that “conviction” it was able - in its opinion - to create the best society in the world and the strongest nation as well. Therefore, it knows how to build societies and run the world, and so it wishes to transfer its successful experiment to others who it claims have had a failed experiment, and then others need to accept what it imposes on them.
If the situation requires that it impose its reality by force, which is contradictory to democracy, then at that point an outlet is sought, which is available and its basis is another concept that has recently been circulated called “good governance” which is an alternative to democracy. This means that others need to do what is right, even if this righteousness goes against their beliefs. British Prime Minister Tony Blair clearly elaborated on this when he stated that “our role is to lead the people and not be lead by the people.” It is clear how contradictory this is to democracy. This tendency isn’t new, and its roots go back to the establishment of the WTO, in which its article 32 states that “decisions are taken based on consensus to prevent the majority from dominating the minority.” This phrase is diametrically opposite to the concept of democracy, because it means protecting the minority from the control or will of the majority.
It just so happens that this month I attended 3 international conferences, and participated by researching the issue of good governance, while I demanded the creation of a new concept. This is because the collapses that have befallen some global companies recently such as Enron and others, indicate that rules and regulations alone aren’t enough, but there should be another concept based on improving performance. This means focusing on how to improve performance rather than focusing on the issue of democracy. The purpose of this is to add moral, behavioral and ethical dimension in addition to the theoretical one, onto the legislative dimensions that govern democracy.
I expect this concept of good governance to proliferate, and gradually replace the term ‘democracy’ because good governance is more important than applying the will of the majority. This is because we cannot assume that the majority is always right. Therefore, we must prepare for this new element in the global political system.
On a related note, study is ongoing on which is more important, security or democracy. In this regard, Soros states that this problem not only affects the world order alone, but also worries America internally. This is because if you desire security, you are going to have to limit some of the freedoms and maybe eliminate some, whether internally or at the global level. So if priority is for protection, then people should not demand the preservation of freedom of expression and movement, but what’s needed is imposing control on their actions and financial movements in order to protect them. In other words, “secondary” things must be sacrificed in order to address the primary objectives.
Also, while a choice can be conducted between equality and the interest of security, security interests usually prevail, at which point one cannot shield oneself with rights and accuse the government of selectivity, because it aims to fulfill the security interest both internally and externally. So what fulfills this interest is one that is more important than considerations for equality and those for avoiding selectivity, which is a problem that the world order suffers from. The best example of this is what relates to Israel. This is something Soros himself admits to, as he says that one of the largest problems that the USA faces is its selectivity when it comes to dealing with Israel. He attacks the Israeli entity as a regime, and confirms that it is one of the major problems that the US suffers from while it claims to seek equality and be cautious when it comes to global policy.
Conclusions:
There is no doubt that talking about the world order can be lengthy. So I’d like to reach a conclusion that will help us understand this topic:
1- A return to international relations rather than universal ones. We must recognize that universal relations have really ended after running their full course and exhausting their avenues. Now we talk about international relations. Whoever follows the statements of Bush or Powell will hear the word “international” constantly.
2- Bilateral relations and agreements in place of multilateral relations: This means that we will return once again to those relations and agreements. So the USA for example, can no longer hinder the campaign of “peace and security” while waiting for the whole world to agree to this march.
3- Increasing the centrality of financial markets, and the domination of these major arteries over investments. Therefore it must be understood that any attempt to attract foreign capital is a waste of time, and therefore we should focus - in our culture - on nationalizing the country’s capital.
I have recently gotten used to asking all the Arab officials that I meet to cancel the laws that encourage foreign investments and replace them with laws that encourage national investment, because this capital is what we really need and what we can control.
4- Increasing all gaps, as opposed to what the world leaders agreed to in New York, where they decided that in 15 years the rates of illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment and so on would all decline. From that time, however and up till now, the gap has increased in everything, and this is what we showed in a memo to the U.N. I can say, unfortunately, that we are heading towards an even larger gap, and further injustice in global social relations.
5- World of knowledge: What is sad is that we are finding only small oases of knowledge within certain countries. This means that there is not only a knowledge gap between one country and the next, but also there is an existence of gaps within the same nation. These deserts of knowledge drought will expand while those oases will shrink.
6- The decline of international organizations: The nature of the factors we discussed will not permit international relations to be governed via international institutions, but those relations will actually have to be submitted to bilateral considerations. This applies to the WTO which has become semi-paralyzed and the International Monetary Fund, whose roles have been reduced to being nothing more than political tools, in addition of course to the UN, which has become merely a political and intellectual forum.
7- A new world order for administering oil: It is worth mentioning in this regard that the process of creating OPEC and the petrodollar market , represented in the 1970s a phase that led to an important development in the new world order. But this order has become unsatisfactory now for many reasons. Therefore, I believe we’ll see a transformation in the way oil is managed worldwide which is different than the way it is now. It will change in such a way so that the tendency will be not only to control the price of oil, but the oil itself. It should be kept in mind that oil is the only commodity that did not enter into the global trade system, but was left to be defined directly between the buyer and seller.
8- The supremacy of security over other considerations such as democracy and reform.
9- Increased selectivity due to philosophical reasons. As long as the security considerations reign supreme, there is no place to discuss the reasons that call for selectivity.
10- Applying security systems on people first, and on capital, commodities, information and otherwise. As for the four freedoms that appeared during the European Community negotiations and those of the WTO, which include the freedom of movement for people, capital, services and commodities. There is still global pressure to apply three of these freedoms, but as for people there has been a step back which means further controlling their movements.
I chaired a committee at the UN in collaboration with the WTO that studied the topic of freedom of movement for people. The discussion at the time was focused on the necessity that this issue be treated in a fashion similar to how capital would be, which means liberalizing it completely. Some suggestions called for the necessity of a global passport that would allow everyone to move freely without having to get entry visas and especially businesspeople, exporters and others. But all these suggestions became obscure, after the discussion now converted to the methods of controlling peoples’ movements in the name of security.
I’d like to conclude by stating that in the near future there will be continuous wars, such as the war on terrorism, a war against the spread of WMD, another to spread democracy, reform and trade liberalization, one to impose certain principles on the world such as “good governance” that we discussed and yet another to fulfill international cooperation. These will be such that whoever tries to work outside this frame of international cooperation will be punished because it will negatively affect the global interest
While it is true that these are all noble goals, it is also true that they have been formulated such that they are achieved through war and not cooperation by being characterized as goals that we all seek to achieve together to benefit everyone. This is Soros’s main problem with all this, who confirms unfortunately that this is the path that will be taken, because it will lead to the collapse of the new world order, because wars cannot be imposed to solve humanity’s problems. These problems need to be addressed by tackling their causes, not by fighting the problems after their creation. This means there must be a transfer from waging a war against the problem, to solving it by addressing its underlying causes.