Gaddiel Chinebuah

I believe that globalisation has done more good for the promotion of human rights to the extent that it is very dependent on how we choose to use it and what we make of it. The world today cannot be imagined without globalisation and the effects it has had on every functioning society on the globe. Likewise, globalisation has had a fairly notable impact on human rights. 

The theory or process of globalisation has had a positive impact on human rights in consideration of the fact that there is a wider spread of awareness is human rights are being violated in any part of the world. The world has become a place where if human rights are blatantly being violated or taken away from a certain group of people in a country, the international community must step in. Of course, this is very controversial statement and some may argue otherwise, but generally the international community has learned to not tolerate violations of human rights. They are made aware when any such violation might be taking place and in that sense, this is doing good for the promotion of human rights. Due to globalisation, the world is made aware when human rights are not being respected and though it still happens, this prevents countries from going about disrespecting human rights for the world to see, because they know there are consequences. This leads into my next point, which is that globalisation is the reason we have international law. This is a standard set of rules that is generally accepted between States and Nations. Violators of international law must face the International Criminal Court. It is definitely beneficial to human rights for such an ideology to be implemented because nations know what boundaries they should not cross and it is apparent to everyone when a country may be crossing this boundary. It might also be important to add that globalisation is the reason for many NGO's that work solely for the promotion of human right, such as the United Nations (UN). Our world is far from perfect and human rights still continue to be violated all over the world, but with such organisations in place, it is not allowed to happen as commonly and as openly as it would be without them. For example, dating back to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, human rights were clearly being violated in this situation. Again, there is a vast amount of controversy as to how effective a role the UN played in this, but one can only imagine how much worse it could have been or longer it would have went on in the absence of international law and the UN. Therefore, in this manner, globalisation can be seen as an efficacious promoter of human rights. 

In addition to this, globalisation is beneficial to the worldwide standard of education. If not for the effects of globalisation, education and better standards of education would not reach certain parts of the world. For example, take into consideration the International baccaularete (IB) educational program. This is a program that begin in Switzerland and has spread all over the world, even here in Ghana. Accordingly, the population of less developed countries are given a better chance at an adequate education as such programs from more developed countries are use there. Furthermore, more developed countries sometimes work to spread education to areas of the world where it may not be available to some. For example, the NGO known as Pencils of Promise, works to build schools all over the world in less developed areas where the youth would have most likely remained uneducated. In this sense, globalisation is a clear advocate of our right to education and ensuring that we all receive it to some level, for that is what we deserve as humans.

Despite the clear examples of globalisation promoting human rights, as the historical trends of mankind has shown us, there are always two sides to everything. In this case, there are definitely examples of globalisation being used in the wrong way and accordingly, doing harm to the promotion of human rights. An example of this, that came up in the debate and classwork prior to, there is the situation of big Western companies using less developed countries for cheap labor. To be more specific, Nike has people working in their Factories in Indonesia, who are barely being paid enough to support one person. Here, human rights are being violated as these people work for excessive hours and receive so little for it. 

In addition to this globalisation can be viewed as the reason for terrorist and extremist groups which usually is as a result of the cultural and/ or religious differences between different groups of people in the world. An example of this is Boko Haram in Nigeria. This is an extremist group who are strongly against the Western education and the fact that it educates girls. This group believes that females should marry and do work at home, as opposed to receive an education and independently find a profession. In recent news, they kidnapped over 200 girls from a local boarding school and have forced them all to convert to Islam. What has happened here is the disparity of religion and cultural beliefs between our world has caused a certain group of people to be stripped of their human rights. This is obviously wrong and unfortunately, happened and continues to happen as a result of globalisation.

In conclusion, globalisation does more good for the promotion of global rights, to the extent that we have to ensure that we do not allow the differences to violate rights. This is a task much easier said than done because there is so much divergence in the world. However, when observed in detail, the benefits of globalisation on human rights come more naturally and even have a stronger effect than that of the ways in which some use it to violate human rights.

Over the last three weeks in humanities class, we have been looking at human rights in general and the legacy that the scramble for Africa has left on the continent. I am interested in exploring whether the Scramble for Africa was the only way to ‘deal’ with the African continent and the African people. By definition, the Scramble for Africa was a process of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914 ("Scramble for Africa.").

 There are four primary reasons for points of justification that the Europeans stood by in their pursuit of colonisation. They felt they were bringing civilisation to ‘savage people,’ wanted to gain from Africa’s mineral and agricultural wealth, build forts and trading posts around the costs (to exert economic and military influence) and lastly, they wanted Africans to think that white men were superior to them in every way and could not be challenged. This was the absolute wrong way to deal with the African continent and people because it automatically degrades them to less than people and gives the impression that they do not have ‘civilisation’ of their own. It was illogical of the Europeans to feel the need to implement their ways onto what they believed were ‘savage’ people. It is vital to inquire as to by what standards that the African people were labeled ‘savage’ or uncivilised. Furthermore, they definitely should not have been made to think that Europeans were superior to them in any way.

 This was certainly not the only way to deal with the African continent and people. I feel that a more appropriate way would have been to appreciate and accept the vast cultural difference and see how they could learn from each other. In my opinion, it was wrong of the Europeans to so heavily implement their ways onto the African people. A better way would have been to build their trading posts and get involved with Africa’s mineral and agricultural richness. Through this, they could try and develop the continent in its cultural ways and not change it. If this was done, Africa could have steadily developed into a much more advanced continent, whiles Europe could exert their economic influence and gain off of Africa’s agricultural and mineral wealth. To colonise a country should’ve meant to take control of or get involved with its economy and gain off of its natural resources, without affecting the country. It should not have meant that they own the people; the culture and can do with it as they please. This way, they would’ve been treating the African continent with more respect, while still gaining from its presence. Though some African people would have been unsettled with foreigners thriving off of their natural resources, it would still be a way for the continent to develop through European influence.

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