In the utmost global citizen, I talked about the value of being a global citizen. Now I would like to address what I consider is the single most important mission of this project: building a community of global citizens. Why? It is clear to me that many of the social structures on which the world depends today are evolving to dilute the authority given by traditional institutions that work within the boundaries of any particular nation. We should expect new groups to appear that inherit the role of those institutions but act in a global context. Knowing who are the people better prepared to assume these roles is a valuable task that we must pursue as a society.
I must clarify that I’m not naive to believe that such a community doesn’t exist already. In fact, over the last few months, as part of the process of writing this blog, I’ve come across many virtual communities that cluster individuals with an affinity for global themes.
- Migrants: this is an area where I’ve seen a lot of activity. It is only natural for people moving to a foreign country to want to reach out to their compatriots. How big is this community? In immigrant population I mentioned 190 million immigrants worldwide. Of course a very small number are online, but they all wish they were in order to maintain a link to their countries of origin. This is why another goal of this project is to help this group get online.
- Third Culture Kids: or the “second generations” of those migrant families. They have grown knowing at least two cultures and as a result are better suited to embrace global culture. This is a well documented social effect.
- Foreign Workers: those that while don’t migrate definitely are exposed to other cultures as a result of their jobs, and are capable of comparing industry performance across geographies.
- Frequent travelers: many very active online communities of travelers exist. Mostly sharing their experiences on the multitude of destinations they touch.
While I think there is a certain challenge in attracting people currently participating in these communities, I don’t necessarily think their participation must be exclusive of one or another. However, I’m convinced that aggregating all these communities in such a way that a certain cosmopolitan rank can be analyzed is an exercise that would create value beyond what these people can get within their own isolated communities.
Once we are able to create such a community and determine who the global citizens are, I believe the gathering of the top 100 people to discuss matters of global implications would create value that many organizations would be willing to pay for. What do you think such group could accomplish?
[...] a forum like Open Cities will connect the right people to make a difference. If my theory about a community of global citizens is correct, the richess of the debate will increase with more participants that have experienced [...]
[...] in order to accomplish something meaningful. Even in this blog I have used the notion that a community of Global Citizens would create tremendous value, but now realize that such an organization doesn’t need to have [...]
[...] This is a perfect scenario that justifies the efforts of building a community of global citizens, that by leveraging their knowledge about tactics to deal with this situation abroad can enlighten us a little bit. Anybody out there? [...]
This was a blog a wrote for my own site but I think it has validity here to:
Establishing a Global Community – Is the Eu the First Step?
Establishing a Global Community
One hundred years ago, the concept and prospect of a global community of any sort was both unheard and unlikely. Admittedly, during the last millennia, there have been several attempts to achieve global governance but this has usually been at the cost of life and freedom rather than a concerted effort to achieve cross cultural/social interaction.
Are we any closer to achieving a Global Community now than we were in 1907? And if so how will we do it?
Users of the Internet would probably argue that a global community already exists. Agreed, the Internet already provides a community of sorts but the ethos here is not necessary towards harmony. The Internet is about freedom of access although corporate organisations would argue against this. If used correctly, the internet would be the perfect vehicle for knowledge sharing, going well beyond the power of the Oracle of Greek legend with the added advantage that you don’t have to provide a blood sacrifice to your PC. Unfortunately, the Internet is predominantly a commercial vehicle, where the emphasis is on profit and not on collaboration and community. Even this site has advertising and seeks to generate revenue, although the funds here ensure survival and provision of services rather than a concerted thrust toward financial gain, I know that some may disagree with this but when I created this site it was for collaborative access to valid information, as the site grows, so do the costs, without income, the site dies. It is an interesting catch 22 but we are walking a tangent here, we can of course discuss this on another thread if anyone feels it is necessary.
Back to community…
So how do we achieve a Global community that exists in real terms rather than electronic? This is a question that has been debated long and hard. The tried, tested and failed approach of enforcement by power has failed. Mainly due to the fact that the centre of gravity for empowerment has been a human and history has taught us well about the failings of people and power. The trouble is that in order to establish a shared ethos to enable society, power is necessary. What we must do therefore is divorce the power form the individual and this is very difficult.
The one event of the past 100 years that has provided a true example of creating a Global community has its roots in Europe. The European union has done more for establishing peace and prosperity and centralised collaboration that any direct attempts have ever achieved. The success of the EU can be measured by the ever-increasing number of countries, which are falling in line for membership. Critics may argue against the EU, in fact I do not agree with a number of policies and concepts within the EU, but what you cannot argue with is its success. The EU is doing more for peace and stability than NATO has done since its creation.
There is a lesson here, an external country will always fight against domination and enforced change but will gladly embrace an entity, which provides economic gain and advantage for its population. I view the EU as a team, all of the members are unique and have their own strengths, some will harmonise and some will have direct differences, the important point is that they are united and try to achieve the same central goal. Fortunately the goal here is not domination, but success. The mixture of cultures within the EU and more importantly, the mixture of religions underline this. The unity of Christianity and Islam is something that is not frequently achieved, despite the obvious common elements in both religions.
The EU is well established but remains an infantile organisation. Despite this, it is clear to most that the EU has a clear and definite role to play in the future lives of European and Non European communities alike. The question is: will the EU become the entity that is able to achieve global success? There is certainly room for achieving this but it is unlikely that the other financial giants of the world will bow in its wake. In fact I fear that should trade become a political gambit, there could be serious consequences for people all over the world. This is not necessarily a predetermined event though, so far the EU has grown because it is attractive, admittedly the prospect of paying over-inflated taxes to import into the EU has a good deal to do with this. On the whole, the approach has worked, whether it will continue to work is another question.
The future of the EU will be measured in the near future by how it handles Africa. Africa, a close neighbour in need of support sits on the horizon of the EU and continues to get closer. EU members promises of aid debt relief and even trade are small be steady steps towards achieving a relationship across the 2 continents, but is this enough and can the EU meet the challenge? This is a difficult question, the corruption in Africa is deep and far-reaching, additionally, and the economic prospects are as fickle as the environment that breaks the countries back on an irregular basis. Despite the internal and external challenges both within Africa and the EU, the two must eventually unite or at least establish a common ground. The two united would enable trade and growth, the two opposed is not worth considering
But how does all this affect a global community? The sorry truth is that in the world there is only one common element that seems to unite man, money. Trade does more for stability every day that a hundred years of war will ever achieve. It today’s world, I see a number of countries that have economic power all of which seem focused internally rather than on the global picture. My hope lays with the EU due to its youth (there is still time to change and embrace new ideas) and due to its locality to the biggest challenge on this planet… Africa. Africa serves as testimony to our lack of global community. If we truly lived, breathed and existed on a global scale, we could not allow the terrible situation to perpetually remain and occur as it does there. Added to this is the inevitability of increased terrorism, borne of Africans who have few choices in life. The ability to have food, water, sanitation and a dry bed is a small price to pay for conflict and suicidal martyrdom, particularly if you are giving life to the ones you love.
So are we closer to a Global Community?
I think so but we have a long, painful way to go.
The Globalist Manifesto Party welcomes this blog. This is a good contribution to the world that is unfolding into its destiny. Eventually, the global public will have to decide as to the cultute of the world. One of such decision is the emergence a global citizenship in a global government. There is a prediction that the next major upheaval of the human civilization will start in the worldwide web and a lot of social and political scientists all over the world thinks that this upheaval is leading to the formation of a global government and the emergence of global citizen, as expounded in this blog. This is also written in The Globalist Manifesto that had been reprinted in the websites that are rating number 1 both in Yahoo and Alta Vista Search in the topic of “formation of a global government”. So, in behalf of the Core Group of the Globalist Manifesto Party, we wish this blog to be the most dominant site in the topic of “emergence of global citizen”. God Bless You.