THE PROMISE OF GLOBALIZATION

    This volume of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies is dedicated to exploring the multifaceted aspects of contemporary globalization. The emerging picture is that of a great paradox. Globalization holds great promise of extending the benefits of science, technology, trade, communications, and economic prosperity throughout the world. Paradoxically, globalization can also deepen the divisions between rich and poor nations, contribute to the revolution of rising expectations in the Third World, and exacerbate frustrations caused by the accelerated pace of socio-economic and political development and cultural change. Modernization, secularization, rationalization, bureaucratization, and depersonalization challenge traditional ways of life based on hierarchy, authority, ascription, family, tribe, community, and age-old socio-cultural and religious mores. The outstanding question is whether the effects of globalization will be democratic or authoritarian, contribute to world peace or exacerbate conflict.

    The Enlightenment project of rationalization, secularization, and bureaucratization assumed the gradual waning of religion, while Max Weber cautioned that modernity would thus entail a "disenchantment of the world." Yet, by the Third Millennium, there is a remarkable resurgence of religion, along with national and ethnic communities which seek to retrieve traditional sources of individual and group identities in a world of "future shock," punctuated by the successive waves of the agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial revolutions (Toffler 1980). The result is a highly volatile mix of advanced technology, competing nation states, and archaic modes of self- and collective identification. The question arises: Can the world's diverse philosophical, cultural, and religious resources foster a dialogue rather than a "clash of civilizations," and thus contribute to peaceful change enhancing human rights and human dignity in a more civil global society? And, how can globalization contribute to socio-economic and political development and cultural change to advance human flourishing?

    This essay proposes that the key to a peaceful, democratic globalization is a successful modernization strategy which seeks to reconcile and conjoin the best elements of modernity and tradition, the individual and community, freedom and order, secularism and religion, democracy and authority. Historians appreciate the fact that globalization is not a new phenomenon, and that, in the Occident, Westernization preceded modernization (Headley 2008). There are, in fact, multiple modernizations and multiple globalizations, as Joseph Dondelinger indicates regarding the many faces of Islam. Critics of globalization see it as a secular, Western-driven process of global economic integration, trade, and communications benefiting rich advanced industrial nations at the expense of poor developing countries.

    Yet, Joseph E. Stiglitz (2007), a Nobel-prize winning economist sympathetic to the plight of developing nations, points out that those who vilify globalization tend to overlook its benefits since globalization and foreign aid have improved the living standards of millions of people around the world. Stiglitz admits that globalization has much unrealized potential to eradicate poverty and promote economic growth, while enhancing world financial stability, prosperity, and free trade. Yet Stiglitz is critical of those who believe that the "free market" solves all problems flawlessly, since the real world is not one of perfect competition, but rather one that reflects lack of information and imperfect competition. Stiglitz advocates the reform of the main institutions that govern globalization: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. In his Making Globalization Work (2007), Stiglitz argues for a more equitable trade and intellectual property regime, along with reducing the indebtedness of developing countries, international fiscal instability, and worldwide pollution.

    Paul Collier goes even further in his analysis of The Bottom Billion (2007), a group of some 50 failing states, whose problems defy traditional approaches to poverty, and which thus pose the central challenge of the developing world. What the bottom billion people need, according to Collier, is a bold new plan by the Group of Eight industrialized nations (G-8) to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters, and even carefully calibrated military interventions. Yet, William Easterly (2006) disagrees in his detailed review of the manifold failures of Western aid strategies, since the Planners' strategies have ignored real life and culture in foreign lands. In Easterly's view, the fundamental flaw of the "do-gooders" has been to impose solutions from the top-down, instead of seeking relevant bottom-up strategies. Easterly concludes that true victories against poverty are achieved most often through indigenous, ground-level planning.

                                                   GLOBALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT

    There is a growing realization among academics and policy experts of the importance of socio-political and legal institutions and culture for economic development and successful globalization. Stiglitz admits that economic globalization--defined as "closer economic integration of the countries of the world through the increased flow of goods and services, capital, and even labor"--has, perversely, "succeeded in unifying people around the world--against globalization" (2007: 4, 7). For Stiglitz, there are five chief concerns raised by globalization: (1) Rules of the game that govern globalization are unfair; (2) Globalization advances material values over other values; (3) Globalization has taken away much of the developing countries' sovereignty; (4) There are many losers in both developing and developed countries; and (5) An inappropriate and often grossly damaging economic system pressed upon the developing countries (2007: 9). Stiglitz is aware that critics of globalization "point to the growing number of people living in poverty," and that "the worst failure is Africa" (2007: 10-11).

    However, while Stiglitz advocates reform of international financial institutions and a top-down approach, critics of government failures to correct market failures advocate a bottom-up approach to economic development. Notable for this latter approach are contributors to Benjamin Powell's Making Poor Nations Rich (2008). As Powell relates, the new growth theory "looks more to institutions and policy. How well does a nation protect its entrepreneurs? In what countries do you get rich by inventing a new product, and in what countries do you get rich by wresting control of government from your rivals?" (2008: 1). The study affirms the basic insights of neo-classical theory regarding the central importance of private property rights, personal choice, voluntary exchange, the rule of law, the sine qua non of entrepreneurs for economic growth, and free entry into markets (Powell 2008: 2-9). As Powell sums it up, a decentralized free economy is conducive to entrepreneurial opportunities which correlate with prosperity.

    Typically, critics of globalization point to Africa and Latin America as prime examples of globalization's failure to promote economic development. Powell and colleagues admit that Africa has been the greatest failure in terms of economic development, with the continent "mired in poverty, famine, disease, and illiteracy" (2008: 10). Critics of globalization are quick to blame rich advanced industrial nations, capitalism, an alleged "war economy," unfair trade policies, and in particular multinational corporations for favoring the rich at the expense of the poor. Even an astute economist like Stiglitz blames "market fundamentalism" and overbearing international financial institutions for self-interest and lack of insight regarding the varied conditions and needs of developing countries. Thus, Stiglitz takes the World Bank to task for meddling in the internal affairs of countries by insisting on certain benchmarks and preconditions for aid and development such as the reduction or elimination of corruption (2007: 300). Yet, corruption, political instability, and the lack of the rule of law and functioning social, economic, legal, and political institutions, along with cultural factors, constitute major impediments to successful modernization, globalization, and economic growth.

    The signal importance of non-economic factors for economic development is no more evident than in the case of Africa. It is true that the phenomena of globalization--positive and negative--are complex. Yet, one of the major factors of growing poverty in Africa and elsewhere is the lack of good governance, social and political stability, and a culture which respects human rights, combined with corrupt native elites, dictatorial rulers, and tyrannical governments. In fact, today, some 50 years after the last European colonial power left the continent, Africa appears worse off than under the much-maligned colonial rule. A telling example is Zimbabwe, which as the former Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa. Today, many rural Zimbabweans are on the edge of starvation. Why? Did multinationals steal all the food or ruin the country's economy? On the contrary. Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, reelected as President in another sham election in 2008, dispossessed thousands of mainly white owners of commercial farms--the backbone of Zimbabwe's prosperous export industry--in 2000. Yet Mugabe broke his promise to distribute the ill-gained land and farms to his needy countrymen. Instead, "government ministers, security officials and ruling party allies grabbed the land and ran the farms into the ground. The nation's richest export industry collapsed almost overnight," and the political abuse of food (including foreign aid) continues, according to Robyn Dixon (2007b: A1). In desperation, Zimbabweans seek food and refuge in South Africa where "compassion has ebbed" (Dixon 2007a: A1).

    In George Ayittey's view, many of Africa's problems stem from embracing socialist ideologies following independence. And the failure of socialist policies resulted in the transformation of African governments into "vampire states" where the rulers enrich themselves while impoverishing the masses (Ayittey in Powell 2008: 179). Western aid to African leaders of such vampire states rather than empowering the people has only compounded Africa's woes, since: "For every dollar that foolish northerners lent Africa between 1970 and 1996, 80 cents flowed out as capital flight in the same year, typically into Swiss bank accounts or to buy mansions on the Cote d'Azur" (Ayittey in Powell 2008: 186). Hence, Ayittey urges well-meaning Western aid donors to rethink their development strategies to help people, while Western governments need to de-politicize and de-racialize their Africa policies (in Powell 2008: 185). This is all the more important due to a peculiar dynamic which contributes to dysfunctional aid strategies: "Rather than clean up their own houses, African leaders prefer to badger the West for more money. And the West, burdened by racial oversensitivity and guilt over the iniquities of the slave trade and colonialism, obliges" (Ayittey in Powell 2008: 186). Powell notes that the West has contributed inadvertently to Africa's poverty by channeling aid to ruling cliques and through programs that have displaced indigenous institutions (2008: 11). Powell and colleagues conclude that what is needed is a "bottom-up," rather than a "top-down," approach to development.

    It is also commonly assumed by critics of globalization that the failed marketization policies of the 1990s have hampered Latin America's economic development. Yet, Alvaro Vargas Llosa contends that Latin America as a region, rich in natural resources like Africa, is characterized by state power, mercantilism, corporatism, privilege, wealth transfer, political instability, corruption, and widespread poverty (in Powell 2008: 191). Llosa argues further that the judiciary in Latin America is also corrupt, an arm of the government, which fails to safeguard individual rights or limit political power. Victor Claar and Robin Klay confirm the importance of socio-political and legal institutions as preconditions for economic growth. Alas, both Africa and Latin America are saddled with many impediments to economic growth and prosperity. Claar and Klay cite the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto who found that just to obtain a permit to open a one-room carpentry shop attached to one's home, it would require a year's income for an average Peruvian worker in the form of payments to bureaucrats over and under the table (2007: 154). Apart from protection of private property rights and the rule of law, Claar and Klay recommend essential reforms to address taxation, spending, regulation, trade, and the financial sector (2007: 158). The authors conclude that, despite claims to the contrary, globalization has led to "remarkable improvements in living standards in many Third World countries, especially over the last two decades" (Claar & Klay 2007: 157).

    Indeed, there are African success stories regarding globalization and economic development. A prime example is Botswana which, following independence, kept much of the British common law, encouraged free enterprise, and maintained a general environment of openness, tolerance, and respect for the rule of law. Botswana reduced government spending as a percent of GDP from 23 percent in mid-1960s to 15 percent by the early 1970s, with a corresponding increase in personal incomes from $372 to $1,032 per capita. However, the discovery of diamonds has led to an expansion of the government sector and greatly increased spending on education, health care, and defense, which has slowed Botswana's economic growth. Scott Beaulier praises Botswana's free-market policies in the early years, but cautions against increasing government intervention in the economy favoring certain sectors, while heavily taxing the diamond industry as the main source of government income (in Powell 2008: 422). Beaulier concludes that, on balance, Botswana's is a success story, since it was "able to pull itself up by its own bootstraps through sound economic policy, antiracist policies, and common sense" (in Powell 2008: 422).

    Unexpectedly, another African country is emerging as a model of successful modernization and economic development following civil war. While in 1994 some 800,000 people were killed in 100 days, Rwanda is emerging as possibly a new model for fighting poverty. A Harvard Business School report (2008) found that Rwanda's economic conditions are improving steadily, that there is stability and social progress, that the country is "corruption free," and potentially on its way of becoming the "Switzerland of Africa" (cited in Kinzer 2008: M6). Stephen Kinzer reports that development specialists are flooding into Rwanda, delighted by President Paul Kagame's entrepreneur-driven agenda. Modeled after the successful development formula of East Asian countries, Kagame's program emphasizes security, education, population control, infrastructure, gender equality, health care, private initiative, self-reliance, honest governance, and a campaign against corruption, bribery, and influence-peddling (Kinzer 2008: M6-7).

    As Kinzer observes, Western human rights activists are less impressed with Kagame's achievements, since the country still falls short on such indices as fully free and fair elections. Yet, observers point out that Rwanda's 1993-94 experiment in competitive politics culminated in genocide. Human rights activists also object to the muzzling of freedom of speech and the press in that criticisms couched in ethnic terms of the previously warring tribes--Hutu and Tutsi--are proscribed. Kagame defends his effort at nation-building, which he sees as promoting a common national identity where all his countrymen see themselves, not as members of separate, warring tribes, but as belonging to one nation as Rwandans. Kagame's endeavor at nation-building is reminiscent of Josip Broz Tito's postwar attempt to forge a common South Slav (Yugoslav) national identity. Yet, Tito's experiment failed to resolve the nationality issue, burdened by ethnic particularisms, civil war, and uneven socio-economic and political development, chiefly because the Titoist system failed to develop genuine democratic institutions for conflict resolution (Gruenwald 1983: 146-94). Nonetheless, Western democratic theory and development models need to acknowledge the contributions of enlightened leaders and modernizers such as Tito and Kagame in the context of socio-economic and political development and cultural change.

    The relative successes of Kagame's Rwanda or post-Mao China in raising millions above poverty confirm Powell's proposition that both dictatorships and democracies are capable of reform, economic growth, and achieving beneficial social change (2008: 21). Powell highlights essential prerequisites for economic growth: "Economic freedom and private property rights are essential for promoting the productive entrepreneurship that leads to economic growth" (2008: 21-22). Ultimately, however, economic freedom and private property rights presuppose, in turn, the rule of law, legal guarantees of basic human rights and freedoms, and thus representative institutions of democratic self-government. As I endeavor to show elsewhere, the proper functioning of socio-economic, political, and legal institutions are, in turn, a function of the underlying values, assumptions, and mores reflected in culture (Gruenwald 2004). In brief, the market's virtue cannot be divorced from the carriers of virtue--individuals and societies.

                                             GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

    In an intriguing thesis, Daniel Cohen suggests that the commonly assumed view that people in poor countries oppose globalization as exploitation by the rich and imposition of Western values may be mistaken. Cohen asserts that, in reality, the opposite may be the case, that is, that people in poor countries object to being ignored and left out when it comes to the material benefits promised by globalization. In brief, the spread of worldwide communications and images of prosperity fuel the revolution of rising expectations and growing discontent. In Cohen's view, the major discontent with globalization is that it does not keep its promises:

"Portraying globalization as a 'clash of civilizations' or as a 'world class struggle' has the merit of historical simplicity, but it confuses myth and reality. The principal problem with globalization today is not that it sharpens religious conflicts or class struggles; it is that globalization does not keep its promises. Globalization creates a strange world that nourishes the feeling of exploitation while in fact exploiting only a bit or not at all. It creates an image of new closeness between nations that is only virtual, not real" (2007: 165-66).

    As in the case of markets (Gruenwald 2004), both proponents and critics of globalization expect too much from it. Contra utopian free-market claims, there are real winners and losers in globalization's process of "creative destruction." Proponents of free markets as a flawless vehicle of globalization and economic prosperity assume perfect competition, which presupposes perfect information and the free flow of capital, labor, and management know-how. Yet this textbook ideal of perfect competition is not the real world. In reality, the world abounds with imperfect competition, ranging from monopoly (U.S. Post Office), oligopoly (OPEC), lack of information, uneven development and resource endowment, cultural impediments to the free flow of ideas, goods and services, to overt and covert protectionist policies such as non-tariff barriers to free trade, state subsidies to various economic sectors or industries, et al. In brief, globalization is rather uneven in its reach and effects, and in the short run, at least, has real winners and losers. Thus, what William Carden invokes as the so-called Schumpeterian process of "creative destruction" is balanced on the backs of U.S. auto, steel, textile, and other workers who become unemployed (some homeless) due to outsourcing of production or service jobs or even the moving of entire plants to lower-wage and thus lower-cost locations abroad, which often lack rigorous environmental protection standards or benefits expected by labor in industrial nations. Protectionist arguments need to be taken seriously, whether regarding so-called infant industries in developing countries which need help until they can compete unaided in world markets, or such sectors as the U.S. steel industry critical to national security, in addition to concerted efforts to (re-)train displaced workers and help them find new productive opportunities.

    Critics of globalization often single out the multinational corporation as the symbol of inequality and exploitation. This oversimplified image of the multinational corporation is appealing especially to left-leaning intellectuals in the West as well as the Third World. Yet, here again, both proponents and critics expect too much from a business enterprise. Proponents of the multinational corporation hail it as the chief engine of economic growth, creating marketable products and services, providing jobs, incomes, and purchasing power, and transmitting technological, scientific, and management know-how. Critics point out that multinationals destroy jobs at home, while exploiting cheap labor abroad. Yet, as Claar and Klay relate, for the unemployed in the Third World, multinationals provide jobs and income, while the chief complaint is not exploitation or low wages, but lack of enough jobs (2007: 151). Even at their best, however, multinational companies are not a substitute for an overall development plan which can and should involve both the private and public sectors in partnership encouraging entrepreneurship and economic growth. Most developing countries badly need not only more multinationals, but diversification of the economy, especially those relying on a single crop export--whether bananas, coffee, sugar, etc.--whose prices fluctuate in international markets. Both advanced and developing countries need to encourage entrepreneurship and private business formation in all sectors, because innovation and most jobs are created even in the U.S. by small and medium-sized companies rather than by large corporations.

    Contrary to the textbook economic model, in reality, capital investment flows are much greater between advanced industrial nations than investment in developing countries. This defies standard economic logic, according to which capital is supposed to flow into activities and locales offering the highest marginal return, that is, into developing countries. But this is clearly not the case due to factors explored above: the lack of social and political stability, lack of infrastructure (roads, ports, etc.), skilled labor, efficient institutions such as banks and courts, and nonexisting local markets. These aspects, characteristic of many developing countries, are a major reason for the lack of capital investment in the Third World, and the fact that multinational corporations are attracted primarily to extractive industries.

    Nigeria is a perplexing example of how a foreign oil company may be constrained to operate in a developing country with a majority of poor village people eking out a meager living from subsistence farming. Foreign oil companies drilled for oil in Nigeria already in the 1950s, but "left the land riddled with polluted waterways and half-cleaned-up spills. No one can plant cassava any more in a large field soaked with oil from a 1972 wellhead explosion" (Vogt 2007: A3). In the meantime, oil fires have become common in Nigeria, caused by aged pipes as well as theft of oil and sabotage by local youths trying to obtain lucrative contracts from oil companies for guarding the oil pipeline and cleaning up oil spills. Villagers even expect pay-offs for letting oil companies come into their neighborhood to extinguish fires or clean up oil spills. Often, the result is a stand-off, while oil fires burn and ravage the landscape. Given Nigeria's $20 billion oil exports to the U.S. in just five years, 2001-2006, one would expect Nigerians to have risen above poverty. But this is not the case: the average Nigerian survives on less than $2 a day. Where does all the oil money go? No one knows for sure, but Heidi Vogt's investigative report offers a clue from the oil company perspective:

"The oil companies say it's not their job to pave roads or build schools like a surrogate government. The Nigerian government owns 55% of Shell's venture in Nigeria. Shell says it can't be held responsible for corruption that keeps the money from reaching villages like Kegbara Dere, where roads are still dirt and houses are made from cement or mud cubes" (2007: A3).

    This confirms Cohen's conclusion that for globalization to fulfill its promise, "the poor countries must build roads, educate their children, and master technologies that are constantly evolving. Access to the Internet requires telephone lines. In order to prescribe medicines, doctors are needed. For the majority of the poor inhabitants of our planet, globalization remains an inaccessible idea" (2007: 166).

                                                          NEGOTIATING MODERNITY

    A much-touted benefit of globalization--besides trade, comparative advantage, division of labor, regional integration, free flow of capital and labor, diffusion of science, technology and management know-how leading to economic prosperity--is the promise of greater individual choice among goods and services and lifestyles, and thus greater cultural diversity. Yet, when it comes to cultural diversity, globalization appears also as an uneven process and a mixed blessing. Even in the U.S., with arguably free flow of information, a large middle class with great purchasing power, and a wide array of choices in all fields, high culture (classical music, opera, higher education, etc.) is dependent on charity--private and public subsidies--for its existence. In contrast, low culture (rock, punk, rap popular music, porn, R-rated movies, violent and demeaning video games, etc.) "sells," that is, is profitable, but contributes to the downward ratcheting of society's cultural sensibilities, with such negative consequences as growing illegitimacy, divorce, prostitution, homosexuality and paedophilia, drug addiction, gangs, violence, crime, and teenage suicide.

    Moreover, as Ted Baehr and Pat Boone note, popular culture shaped by the mass media, advertising, and the Hollywood entertainment industry is a cause for concern both at home and abroad. Contributors to The Culture-Wise Family (2007) expose the phenomenal reach of popular culture which envelops everyone, with pernicious effects in particular on youth. Hollywood rules, but this is not an occasion for jubilation. Typical Hollywood productions featuring excessive nudity, vulgarity, sex, and violence now reach across the globe via electronic technology, providing a distorted image of the West, especially the U.S., as the purveyor of filth, moral decadence, sexual perversion, materialism, atheism, and moral-ethical relativism, broadcast via satellites, the Internet, DVDs, movies, MTV, podcasts, etc. into even remote villages in the Third World. How can such toxic culture exports edify foreign audiences or contribute to world peace?

    While critics question Samuel Huntington's (2002) thesis regarding the division of the world along civilizational lines, leading to "a clash of civilizations," they overlook a more fundamental dynamic inherent in all societies and civilizations: the perennial contest between modernity and tradition, new lifestyles and the established cultural mores, the city and the village, urban and rural. Western-style globalization rooted in Enlightenment science and rationality, and exemplified by modern lifestyles which are increasingly secular, materialistic, and hedonistic, challenge traditional cultural mores in all societies. What is little understood is that the world is divided regarding the desirability of such Western-style globalization.

    Historically, modernization was often linked with Westernization. Thus, Peter the Great in Christian Russia and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Muslim Turkey promoted both modernization and Westernization, yet traditionalists continue to challenge their legacies. Throughout Russian history, Slavophiles opposed the Westernizers, while in contemporary Turkey Muslim traditionalists question Ataturk's modernization project. This dynamic between modernity and tradition is universal, while the attendant socio-psychological dissonance sharpens the dilemma of defining individual and group identities in a world of accelerated social, economic, political, scientific-technological, and cultural change. Notably, this dynamic does not run along political, economic or even religious lines, but rather is inherent in all societies, past and present, sometimes conjoined in individuals manifesting a split consciousness.

    One of the perplexing dilemmas confronting people in the Third World today is that globalization now crests upon largely tribal societies which have yet to negotiate three major civilizational waves: the agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial revolutions. For most people in the developing world, Alvin Toffler's prophetic Third Wave (1980), promising a post-industrial era of unprecedented leisure, creative, educational and artistic pursuits, amidst universal affluence, remains but a dream. As sociologists and psychologists know, unfulfilled expectations can lead paradoxically to different responses: resignation, renewed efforts to overcome obstacles, or rebellion.

    Much of the Third World is thus in the throes of negotiating modernity. This dynamic is characterized by a transition from subsistence farming to industry, from rural to urban, tribal to national, traditional to modern. The world can expect far greater migrations from rural areas to towns, and perhaps, as in the case of Tito's Yugoslavia, the consequent ruralization of towns and urbanization of villages. Much of the world is likely to be characterized by the socio-psychological and cultural phenomenon of the peasant-worker or transitional man. In the Yugoslav context of the 1960s-1970s, Yugoslav guest workers abroad were drawn largely from this transitional social layer of peasant-workers who embodied the conflicting cultural values, lifestyles, and predispositions of tradition and modernity. As I summed it up in The Yugoslav Search for Man:

"The revolution of rising expectations, modernization, industrialization, and mass production and consumption are the powerful forces dominating our century. Yet, an entire civilization connected with the land may die out without a whimper. It is leaving behind bewildered people, among them the army of peasant-workers whose transitional life style in perceived as marginal by their fellow men" (1983: 132-33).

    The peculiar cultural predicament of peasant-workers is that in the city they are not considered as workers, but rather as "ignorant, backward and uncultured," whereas to the village folk back home they are "lost souls since they had left the circle of peasant traditions and views" (Gruenwald 1983: 133). Should one not conclude, with William Shakespeare in another context, that here we may indeed have love's labors lost? While the post-communist world eagerly embraces Western-style globalization, modernization, and secularization, especially in Central and Eastern Europe as far as the Ukraine, non-Western civilizations such as Japan and East Asia follow their own paths to modernization, socio-economic and political development which incorporates native cultural and religious traditions and ways of life. In brief, there are different modes and ways of negotiating modernity.

                                                        RELIGION AND MODERNIZATION

    Huntington, among others, cautions that among different civilizational forms contending in the world today, Islam is of particular concern since it is convinced of its cultural superiority but frustrated by the lack of corresponding political power to extend its influence. Yet, the view of Islam as inherently anti-Western and anti-modern is also an oversimplification. Post-Ataturk Turkey, a candidate for EU membership, is an encouraging example of a Muslim country which seeks to conjoin some of the best aspects of the Western intellectual heritage such as Enlightenment science and representative political institutions with Muslim personal and religious identity. Turkey's experiment is unique in the Muslim world for disestablishing religion. However, a constitutional crisis looms over the issue of allowing women to wear the veil in public institutions, which violates the country's secular Constitution (Labi 2008: A21). Other Muslim societies seek modernization without Westernization and secularization. Malaysia epitomizes successful globalization and modernization embedded in a Muslim civilizational, cultural, and religious context. Joshua Kurlantzick writes that: "Malaysia has benefited enormously from globalization, throwing itself open to trade, building a high-tech corridor and growing into one of the wealthiest nations in the region. Yet it has boomed in part by embracing one of the oldest concepts in Islam--Islamic banking" (2008: M11). On the other hand, Uzbekistan's modernization project is hampered by government-sponsored religion which promotes Islam throughout society while unable to fulfill its utopian social obligations, which exacerbate conflict among the poor and disenfranchised. In John Pottenger's view, Uzbekistan's attempt at synthesis of modern liberal democracy with traditional Islamic values of social welfare suffers from the preferential treatment of one version of Islam:

"It appears that the Uzbek state has in effect nationalized one version of Islam, subsequently marginalizing all other interpretations to the point of persecution. That is, while Karimov has promulgated a vision of a civil society characterized by religious liberty, the actions of Karimov's government have merely replaced the former ideology of the Soviet era with a government-approved political theology that permits only limited religious toleration. Thus it has undermined the promise of the religious axis and the possibility of civil society itself" (2007: 207).

    On the world scale, the contemporary resurgence of religion reflects the crisis of modernity--the loss of traditional anchoring of social, cultural, and ethical mores, self- and group identification and meaning. Deepak Lal distinguishes between material and cosmological beliefs of a culture. The material beliefs which relate to ways of making a living can change quickly. In contrast, cosmological beliefs concerning how one should live "provide the moral anchor of different civilizations and are slow to change" (Lal in Powell 2008: xii). Lal notes that Western cosmological beliefs promote "individualism, the independence of the young, and love marriages," which contrast with "communalist values and arranged marriages that remain common to this day in the rest of Eurasia" (in Powell 2008: xiii).

    It is important to differentiate between various historical manifestations of Islam down the ages, and to emphasize affinities between the West and Islam. Yet, it is equally important to address negative phenomena, East and West, North and South, which impede mutual understanding and world peace. Religious believers in particular have a legitimate concern that terrorism, sponsored by radical, militant Islamists, undermines not only socio-economic and political development, the efficacy of world diplomacy for the peaceful resolution of international conflicts, juridical processes, and civil liberties, but contributes ironically to even more secularization, since all who take their religion seriously tend to be viewed as "fundamentalists" and, hence, potential terrorists. In fact, radical Islamists-jihadists pose a challenge not only to the West, but even more to fellow Muslim believers who practice their faith as a religion of peace.

                                           IN SEARCH OF AN ISLAMIC RENAISSANCE

    When it comes to Islam, dialogue, and peace, there is an urgent need to address contemporary dilemmas, pro and con. To begin with, one should acknowledge the diverse interpretations and practices in historical Islam. One needs to recall also the splendid Islamic traditions in art and architecture, calligraphy, and poetry. Islam at its best emphasizes ethical conduct, a prayer life, family, community, friendship, hospitality, and peace. The great Islamic virtues of magnanimity and generosity find their counterpart in the Christian vision of charity. Such virtues are more important today than ever before, and could be the foundation for an Islamic Renaissance. Yet, Muslim intellectuals and scholars especially need to address those features of current Islamic thought and practice which hinder democratic socio-economic, political, and cultural development, and constitute impediments to dialogue and peace:

    1. Aspects of the Islamic law--shari'a--with its cruel and unusual punishments (amputating limbs for theft; stoning women for adultery; death sentence for a Muslim who converts to another faith) deny human rights and human dignity and contradict, inter alia, the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, in Afghanistan, a Muslim man desiring to convert to Christianity had to be rescued from a mob intent on killing him (CBS World News 2007). In Iraq, the country's only Catholic Archbishop was assassinated and the pogrom against the Christian minority is intensifying despite and, in part, perhaps because of the U.S.-led Allied campaign to root out al-Qaeda terrorists while forestalling an all-out sectarian civil war and the potential disintegration of Iraq as a viable state. Optimists hope for peace and the development of Western-style democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, which, however, would require ambitious modernization strategies spearheaded by cultural, more than military, engagement.

    2. The Islamic law--shari'a--suppresses basic human rights and freedoms, for example, freedom of speech, press, thought, assembly, association, conscience, and religious expression.

    3. With few exceptions, notably Turkey, there are no democracies in Muslim countries, but rather dictatorships, oligarchies, and theocracies.

    4. In Islam, in general, there is no separation between church (mosque) and state, which denies equal rights and representation to non-Muslim believers and nonbelievers, and undermines civil society.

    5. Radical/militant Muslims still invoke jihad or "holy war" against non-Muslims, which is an affront to both God and man. Pope Benedict XVI enjoins that: "No religion should be invoked to justify violence and war."

    6. Radical Muslim clerics and their "religious schools" (madrassas) in Pakistan and elsewhere teach hatred against all non-Muslims and incite jihad, which is an insult to peace-loving Muslims and betrays Muslim youth searching for a better life. As a Saudi youth, tricked into a failed suicide mission, concluded: "There is no jihad. We are just instruments of death" (Abu-Nasr 2007: A8).

    7. Jihadists kill noncombatant civilians--men, women, and children--which is both immoral and contradicts all civilized legal codes and international agreements.

    8. Why Muslim scholars, intellectuals, and clerics do not censure Muslim suicide bombers who kill civilians, and why such misdeeds dishonoring all Muslims are not condemned publicly by a religious edict (fatwa) or similar.

    9. Why do women in Muslim lands have to wear a veil or burkhas? Is not that false modesty, when Muslim men can engage in polygamy--up to four legal wives, plus concubines? Of course, "serial" marriages in Hollywood amount to the same thing. A sympathetic Iraqi father, with Solomonic wisdom, assured his daughter traveling to the U.S. for study that it was O.K. to take off her veil (Mineeia 2008: M5). Meanwhile, in Iraq, Christian women now also don a veil in public for fear of reprisal by militant Muslims. Zainab Mineeia confides that "as religious groups have gained more power, it has become dangerous to be spotted without one--so much so that even Christian women now wear the hijab when they go out. To me, that signified that something was wrong with my country" (2008: M5).

    10. Of equal concern is violence against Arab women, in particular so-called "honor killings," forbidden by Islam, where a male relative may kill a woman just for speaking to a man in secret, while prosecution is hampered by lack of witnesses afraid to challenge a powerful conservative Arab tradition (Hadid 2007: A6). Further, according to news reports (NBC Channel 4-TV, 12 June 2007), Arab-Muslim countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia still engage in the slave trade, including prostitution, while the U.S. abolished the slave trade in 1808, and William Wilberforce, a Christian abolitionist and slaves' champion, succeeded when the Slave Trade Abolition Bill passed the British Parliament in 1807, featured in the movie Amazing Grace (2007).

    These considerations lead to the proposition that it is time for Muslim scholars, intellectuals, and clerics to bring Islamic theory and practice into the twenty-first century by reclaiming the many traditional strengths while correcting its weaknesses. Critics of Islam point out that the shortfalls and backwardness of Islamic thought and practice are due to the fact that Islam never experienced an Enlightenment or a Reformation. And, it is up to Muslim scholars to redeem their tradition and their faith. Shalom and Salaam.

                                                      BEYOND GLOBALIZATION

    In sum, globalization may be an inescapable phenomenon, but the jury is still out whether it can fulfill its promises of socio-economic and political development, modernization, peace, and prosperity, and thus enhance human life and human dignity in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. Already, Benjamin R. Barber (1995) pointed out two great dynamics shaping the contemporary world: the inexorable integration by technology, information, and the transnational corporation (McWorld) vs. the re-tribalization and Balkanization of nation-states (Jihad). Barber saw both dynamics as threatening democracy: McWorld by discouraging debate and accepting inequalities, and Jihad by undermining tolerance and deliberation. Barber's antidote to the twin threats to liberal democracy was for each civilization and culture to build and strengthen its own institutions of civil society. This would mean the renewal of non-governmental, non-business "civic spaces" such as the village green, voluntary associations, churches, schools, and the like, which nurture true citizenship. Yet, a democratic civil society needs to nurture both freedom and virtue (Gruenwald 2007).

    This Journal, which champions global interdisciplinary studies via rigorous analyses, offers reasoned hope for humanity's prospects in the Third Millennium (Gruenwald 1992, 1997, 2005). What the world needs most is moral and spiritual renewal to energize and guide socio-economic and political development and cultural change. The worldwide renaissance of religion is testimony to the perennial human quest for transcendent meaning, values, and truths which can anchor one's identity and self-worth both as individuals and members of particular communities. If globalization is to succeed as a peaceful project of modernization, it will need to offer the world's inhabitants socio-cultural, psychological, and religious modes of negotiating modernity by conjoining the best aspects of modernity and tradition, along with cultural diversity. Education, dialogue, openness, people-to-people diplomacy and self-help in all spheres can be the harbingers of a more humane future in a more civil global society.

    Even in officially atheist Communist China, boasting an ultra-secular modernization project, tradition is reasserting itself via the entrepreneurial spirit of local communities, combined with the quest for cultural roots in Confucianism and the spiritual quest of the human soul longing for happiness, perfection, redemption, immortality, and fellowship with God. Daniel Bell (2008) muses that China's Marxist ideology could metamorphose into something akin to a Confucian socialist republic. Christianity, both official and unofficial, is growing in China, which now has an estimated 70 million Christians. Though still a small minority of only five percent of China's population, Christians epitomize the growing popularity of religion in a formally atheist country. Unexpectedly, the growth of Christianity in contemporary China is led not by foreign missionaries, but by native Chinese citizens themselves (Osnos 2008: A11). Thus, Zhang Ming-Xuan, a former Communist Party member, broke away from the state-sanctioned official church and founded his independent Zion Church. These evangelical Protestants reflect a wider spiritual awakening in China. The crisis of faith and the quest for moral and spiritual renewal in China seem to be increasing in proportion to the country's successes with marketization and "Wild West" capitalism whose side effects include corruption and pollution.

    In China, as elsewhere, successful globalization, modernization, and socio-economic development appear to sharpen the question of ethics, morals, and religious faith. Surprisingly, even some Party members "argue that their religion does not put them at odds with the government" (Osnos 2008: A11). Ideological purists across the philosophical-political spectrum might disagree. The contemporary Chinese scene is, however, eerily reminiscent of the Yugoslav experiment in self-managing socialism where things were not what they seemed. While celebrating China's economic advances and hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, one should not forget the millions incarcerated in the laogai--the Chinese Gulag (Wu 1992)--whose dual-nomenclature prison factories employ alienated, exploited labor (Courtois 1999).

    As Theodor Damian intimates, Christianity is an ideal paradigm of globalization since it provides the larger framework for peaceful coexistence aspiring to the blessed hope of individual and societal fulfillment in the redeemed global village which is Paradise. Yet the greatest paradox concerns how to reconcile the secular and the sacred, man's quest for freedom and the yearning for salvation, reflected in St. Augustine's vision seeking to bridge the chasm between the earthly and the heavenly spheres. It was Augustine's persuasion that the heavenly city would inspire and energize the human quest in the earthly city this side of eternity, though burdened by original sin. Then and now, the key question remains man's self-understanding and attitude toward other human beings. Providentially, both believers and nonbelievers around the globe may take heart in Jesus' answer to the paradigmatic question, "And who is my neighbour?" (Luke 10: 29). Jesus' answer via the famous parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10: 30-36) promulgates the great moral/ethical guide for human self-understanding, action, and relationships down the centuries and into the future--the true end of history--consummated in the Kingdom of God.

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Oskar Gruenwald, IIR-ICSA Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.