A chara, - Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world have expressed concerns about the effects of globalisation.
Globalisation is a political and economic ideology that continues the flow of resources from the developing world to the developed world, allows the stabilisation of huge armies and accommodates the needs of trans-national corporations.
The majority of Irish people perceive themselves to be net beneficiaries of this process. The power-sharing political networks support and bring in foreign direct investment at bargain-basement tax rates. Along with the allocation of EU structural and cohesion funds, this investment provides the financial basis of the economic boom. Globalisation provides the gimmicks, gadgets and get-aways that the Irish covet as they wallow in the wonder of temporary material prosperity.
Of course, being a globalised economy, Mother Ireland must scale down the percentage of available national revenue allocated to health, education and environmental protection, thereby creating unnecessary crises in these sectors. Nevertheless, the proliferation of foreign holidays, new trans-national corporation products in homes and an abundance of new cars represent indicators of approval for the politics and economics of globalisation.
The influx of people to Ireland from other countries represent another indicator of globalisation.
Millions of people throughout the earth have been displaced from their native homes as a direct consequence of the politics and economics of globalisation. Some come to Ireland to reconstruct their lives and participate in an affluent Western society. Some are victims of violence and persecution; others have been deprived of their traditional lands and livelihoods through economic "adjustment programmes".
The suffering of others pays for our luxuries.
In order to fulfil the labour requirements of the six-year national development plan, Ireland is preparing to host 250,000 people. The social infrastructure to accommodate and integrate these people remains underdeveloped. We struggle to accept refugees and asylum-seekers, the displaced losers of globalisation. Our communities' response to new residents has not been informed by a Government-sponsored hospitality and integration programme. This is a lost opportunity.
Globalisation does not just happen on the streets of Seattle, Prague and Genoa. It also happens in Termonfeckin, Lisdoonvarna and Roscrea. We co-exist in the globalised village with six billion other humans and countless other species. The Irish are a multicultural, multi-ethnic people who perceive themselves, in general, as net beneficiaries of the process of globalisation. We could try harder to forge politics, policies and behaviour to welcome the net losers of the process into our communities and society.
Let's face it, we're still going to buy aggressively marketed sweatshop produced "goods"; we're still going to approve of an economy based on fossil fuel extraction; and we're still going to prioritise personal comfort over the human rights of unknown others suffering in a distant corner of the globalised village.
The least we can do is extend the personal and institutional hand of welcome to those people who have to leave their homes to facilitate our prosperity. - Yours, etc.,
╔anna Dowling, Brownstown Little, The Curragh, Co Kildare.