A better world…
International Panel on Social Progress will carry out a long-term project by assembling over 200 prominent academicians and writers from five continents. The panel is planning on publishing a report in 2017, on how the world can be turned into a better place in 21st century. Report will be comprised of broad chapter topics. Report topics will be distributed in between academicians and there will also be fieldwork.
The ways of how the decision making powers, citizens, non-governmental organizations and movements can reduce injustice and disagreements on economic, political and social structures will be analyzed. The group is guided by a committee which is run by Amatrya Sen, who happens to be 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize Laureate in Economic Sciences and a Harvard Professor. The panel is sponsored by some academic organizations such as Princeton University and Maison des Sciences de I’Homme.
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The group’s first plenary session took place on last Thursday and Friday in Bilgi University.
The discussions of the closed-door meetings were the topics of the report and the distribution of the duties. I attended the conference in Bilgi, which was open to public. The title was ‘Globalization: Good or Evil’.
Prabhat Patnaik, a former professor at Nehru University, Columbia faculty members and Committee on Global Thought members Saskia Sassen and Professor Akeel Bilgrami respectively addressed significant issuses.
‘Transition from local to global’ is a subject on which a wide variety of people, ranging from academic communities to european citizens in particular, somewhat have an idea.
‘Citizen of the world’ has lately become an oft-heard term.
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Ms. Sassen emphasized that, the change needed to end the economic turmoil should not be expected from the powerful. The history will be written when the change is made by those who don’t have power. She talked about the zigzags emerging due to crisis even in major economies and showed us on charts how they are going up higher than before. ‘Who is the winner?’ question is asked. She reminded that the African lands are leased for long years by rich governments. She mentioned that prominent individuals and foundations of oil-rich countries, such as Qatar, owned more real estate in London than the Queen of England; hence they are land owners. And talked about the cultural erosion caused by the transformation of real estates and investments purchased by the major corporations into profit-driven mega projects. Within this regard, what happens is, the rich is changing the cultural texture in foreign countries with their investments for a different cause while the poor is immigrating to rich countries for a job after their land is colonized. Germany-born, sociologist and economist Sassen is also known with his criticism towards urban transformation. She states that people in global cities, who are forced to evacuate their houses on account of urban transportation, suffer through that whole transition period.
She had also mentioned in his studies that some of the evacuees in certain projects, have ended up paying higher rents for their temporary houses. Regionalism and borders of sovereignty along with production and economic balance are two important dicussion points in globalization.
Issues such as, countries with cheap labor, production and immigration, international economic organizations, IMF (International Monetary Fund) and debt structuring have been conferred in detail.
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As for Professor Akeel Bilgrami, he questioned the change of the winners in the world since 1940s and whether it is possible to move forward against capitalism without confronting globalization. He spoke of Islam and Christianity propaganda war within the aspect of clash of civilizations. He pointed out that ‘Islamic Terror’ is organizing all around the world. He talked about the effects of the trauma in the past of societies that were affected by colonization and immigration to Europe, on that.
Him and I had a quick word at the conference. He emphasized that the traumatic effect of violence during Iraq’s invasion cannot be denied in regards to joining to ISIS in particular.
Yet, he also underlined that besides people who suffered such a trauma, there are also other youngsters joining ISIS from cities such as London and New York; and these youngster known to have studied in Western Schools rather than having any Islamic education. Each and every one of these Islamic crusaders have described themselves as anti-imperialists. He also relayed that the uprising of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was then supported by the West.
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Professor Prabhat Patnaik, a former faculty member of Jawaharlal University, gave the most impressive speech. He is known to be a Marxist economist. He relayed that economic policies are carried out in accordance with financial capitals’ interests, regardless of the government’s identity. He mentioned that even though the governments change via elections, independent policy enforcement is out of question. He reminded that wages would not go up despite the increase in the production of the workforce. Also, the question of how much of the governmental expenditure is spent for the public, is important.
