Under this kind of political regime, safety of the people is one of the
major concerns. Under this scenario, access to social spaces has become
very exclusive. Access to social spaces is based on positions in the
hierarchies of corporate, state or international organizations as well
as on transnationally valid credit ratings.
The neo-imperial interventions have had several implications;
specially in oil industry. The oil has become more expensive and there
is anxious world over regarding the effects of global warming.
This model also increases “securitisation” process. In the recent
times most “European “ countries have faced “ new “ threats of
terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, transnational crime, climate
change. These new threats have become are linked to the global economic
conflict. These new threats have also initiated the process of creating
a global security community based on certain ideas of inclusion and
exclusion.
The European Union is thus looking forward to creating a social
democratic and territorial federation.
Post 1914, the project of Europe has been about building
structures of peace and unity within Europe “in order” to become
once again more powerful in the outside world.
The nature and future of European Union depends on global
military reach and a centralized political institution. Is this scenario
possible?
There is a sense of partial disintegration due to two main reasons.
Firstly, some members are loyal first to the U.S.A., second, to
transatlantic alliance and only third to the Union. Secondly the age-old
internal conflicts between nation states and internal legitimization
with the nation states of the European Union may translate into a
project of “ two speed”.
Thus the future of global democratic union lies in the resolution and
negotiation of internal politics and creating a central institution
apart from the monetary institutionalization. |
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“Coolie Migration in the Colonial Era” by Jan Breman Around the middle of 19th Century, globalisation led
to the emergence of new patterns of consumption. Labour became mobile
and available over large distances. It is against this background that
the history of “coolie” migration needs to be understood.
In India, the word “coolie” has a denigrated connotation.
The word “coolie” was used in China and Indonesia in the 15th
C and 16th C. In Tamil, the word “ coolie” means a new
worker. A worker who was to be employed on a contract basis. Coolies
were shipped overseas from India to Malay, Africa, Mauritius. In India,
there were coolie recruitments in tea plantations. Coolies who went to
West Indies were also employed in various other works.
Around this time tea was a new item of consumption. A new pattern of
consumption emerged globally. Tobacco, coffee, rubber and sugarcane were
the new items of consumption. Sugarcane was not treated as a commercial
crop. The world economy was looking for a new range of products and
treating them as commodities to be produced and sold. Coal mines in
Indonesia were another area where the labour force was recruited from
across the globe. To understand the global movement of labour in the
colonial era it is significant to understand the global nature of the
economy.
The last ten years has seen the emergence of literature that voices
“colonialism” as a benign force. This strand of literature argues
that colonialism started attributing value to things, which didn’t
carry any value. With the advent of Colonialism, development policies
were introduced to the otherwise static and stagnant “Asiatic mode of
production”.
The book Taming of the coolie beast tries to understand
“coolie” from an anthropological perspective. Who were these
coolies? What made them coolies in Indonesian economy? Plantations were
the new systems of production and
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