Falling off the Edge: Globalization, World Peace & Other Lies by Alex Perry
Macmillan, £11.99
ALEX PERRY’S controversial thesis is that progress is inevitably accompanied by violence. Rather than promoting peace, globalization can be blamed for the rising inequality between nations and people. Perry is not the first (and he surely won’t be the last) to suggest that war is the natural flipside to progress and that globalization is essentially Darwinian – “a fight between all mankind to find the fittest of the species” – but in this absorbing account he does make the case rather well.
An award-winning foreign correspondent, and currently African bureau chief for Time magazine, Perry exploits his considerable experience and access to several unsavoury characters – including a militant Muslim leader in India, the leader of violent protest in the Niger Delta and an Indonesian pirate king – to prove his thesis.
The problem with “flattening” the globe is that “people fall off the edge” says Perry, playing with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s concept. The victims are Perry’s focus as he trawls through hotspots from war-torn Afghanistan to the slums of Mumbai and the sweatshops of Shenzen; civil unrest in Nepal and Sri Lanka to black-on-black prejudice in South Africa. He predicts that the gathering storm of global war will threaten the developing world the most, precisely because of its fast-changing (and therefore volatile) nature.
Increasingly, there is no middle class to provide a buffer between the haves and have-nots and, he suggests, this contributes to a growing animosity towards the apparently indifferent wealthy. For the millions who endure poverty and segregation: “Globalization is not about integrating the world [but] about integrating the rich.” If development merely accentuates this inequality then it is not surprising it leads to violence: “Boom, then bang.” As he points out, an increasing number of conflicts are triggered by the exclusion of the poor and their hate is often directed at the big corporations – for when big corporations prosper then so too does corruption.
In fact, Perry says, globalization boosts crimes like smuggling, people trafficking, illegal drugs and piracy precisely because “it eases travel restrictions, lowers borders, and integrates different criminal syndicates.” This is borne out by the unprecedented levels of violence along Mexico’s border with the US – a region not explored by Perry – but he provides plenty of other examples: Islamic terrorism that is now supported by disaffected Muslims across the world; piracy that thrives in unpoliced oceans; and the burgeoning Asian sex trade in children.
Perry’s is a damning critique: “Globalization is global governance without global government.” But he ends on a more positive note when he applies the Dalai Lama’s belief in negotiation to globalization: “You can’t say this is white or this is black, absolutely positive or negative,” he told Perry. “Everything is, you see, mixed.”
Lucy Popescu
