{"id":3812,"date":"2000-01-01T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-01-01T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/about-us\/history\/letter\/january-2000-living-in-the-global-village\/"},"modified":"2022-11-27T01:49:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T01:49:58","slug":"january-2000-living-in-the-global-village","status":"publish","type":"rbc_letter","link":"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/about-us\/history\/letter\/january-2000-living-in-the-global-village\/","title":{"rendered":"January 2000 &#8211; Living in the Global Village"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"layout-column-main\">\n<p class=\"boldtext\">People from different countries are coming                     together more day by day as the global society approaches                     reality. But can it survive the prejudices of the ages? The                     Canadian experience says it can, given good thinking and good                     will&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> Much &#8211; some would say more than enough &#8211; has been said and                     written recently about the globalization of the economy. Yet                     at the same time the emergence of a parallel phenomenon seems                     largely to have escaped the attention of the media, academia,                     and indeed the general public. It might be called, to coin                     another buzz-phrase, the globalization of society.<\/p>\n<p>This second sort of globalization consists of the non-commercial                     coming-together of diverse human beings across borders and                     oceans. Thanks to accessible air travel, it is continually                     under way in face -to-face encounters with foreign parties                     by everybody from world leaders to children still in primary                     school.<\/p>\n<p>No physical presence is required, however, to become part                     of the great co-mingling. International contacts are also                     maintained over the Internet and low-cost overseas telephone                     systems, which enable individuals with different backgrounds                     but the same interests to commune across vast distances as                     if they were in the same room.<\/p>\n<p>While people from all walks of life mix actually and virtually                     with residents of foreign lands, the &#8220;global village&#8221; is taking                     shape in ways which the author of the term, Marshall McLuhan,                     could not have imagined when he coined it in the 1960s. For                     instance, it is a rare city on any continent these days that                     is not linked to satellite news networks such as the BBC,                     CNN and TV 5.<\/p>\n<p>By illustrating the commonality of people everywhere, satellite                     TV has joined with the Internet to strike an historic blow                     for international understanding. They ensure that national                     populations can no longer effectively be kept in the dark                     and fed propaganda promoting enmity against demonized foreign                     powers and the citizens thereof.<\/p>\n<p>The blossoming of freedom of movement and speech is transforming                     the very idea of society. A society is defined as a group                     of persons forming a community, something that has always                     been delineated by kinship or location. The community of interests                     now spreading around the planet is unconfined by either nationality                     or geography.<\/p>\n<p>The global village has cropped up in a tangible form in                     western countries that have lately experienced an influx of                     immigrants and refugees. While they might never have traveled                     abroad or owned a computer, residents of these countries stand                     on the testing ground of social globalization in their own                     towns, cities, and even neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n<p>But while the dream of &#8220;One World&#8221; may be coming true in                     a practical sense, it lacks spirit. The task laid out by John                     F. Kennedy in 1963 &#8211; to &#8220;make the world safe for diversity&#8221;                     &#8211; remains sadly unfulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>Whether McLuhan&#8217;s village will resemble one in, say, peaceful                     Saskatchewan or one in war-torn Kosovo depends on whether                     the age- old divisions that continue to plague the human race                     can be overcome, or whether man will persist in his inhumanity                     to man (and, more to the point, to woman and child).<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the record is not encouraging. The century                     just behind us ended as if, over its entire span, people had                     learned nothing about how to live together in amity. For all                     its vaunted progress, the 20th century is likely to go down                     in history as the century of genocide and the refugee.<\/p>\n<p>The persistence of inter-group strife is one of the world&#8217;s                     great unsolved mysteries. Why, for instance, should members                     of the sects of a single religion lash out at one another                     like fighting cocks over differences in belief that are imperceptible                     to anybody but themselves?<\/p>\n<p>One partial explanation for such senseless antagonism stems                     from a fear of what the other fellow might be up to. Psychologists                     say that apprehension is behind the pre-emptive strike which                     usually leads to bloodshed among both the attacked and attackers.                     It need not necessarily be motivated by a fear of death or                     bodily injury. The cause is often a fear of loss &#8211; the loss                     of political power, territory, or a livelihood to a rival                     group.<\/p>\n<h3>Myth of superiority<\/h3>\n<p>When people are gripped by such fear, their first reaction                     is to attempt to find security by surrounding themselves with                     the familiar, like a child hiding under the blankets. Those                     who do so insist that human beings can only be safe and happy                     among their own kind, be they members of a social class, ethnic                     group, religion, clan, sect, or nationality.<\/p>\n<table width=\"415\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/dotted_quote_line.gif\" width=\"415\" height=\"1\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">\n<div class=\"quote\">&#8216;Prejudices&#8230; are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks.&#8217; <span class=\"boldtext\">Charlotte Bronte<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/dotted_quote_line.gif\" width=\"415\" height=\"1\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>In some cases it may be possible to remove the threat outsiders                     pose by assimilating them into a culture. As a rule, however,                     it is simpler to exclude them, especially if they are markedly                     different ( in skin colour or religion, for instance) from                     one&#8217;s own group. To prevent them from invading the group,                     they must be regarded with constant suspicion. In the eyes                   of group members, they can do no right.<\/p>\n<p>It follows that if they can do no right, they must have                     something inherently bad about them. It is a short step from                     viewing some people as bad to viewing their presence as a                     bad thing. From this springs the doctrine of racial purity,                     which runs that there can be no mixing with despised groups                     because that would somehow spread contamination. Carried to                     its logical (or illogical) conclusion, it was this line of                     thinking that gave rise to the horrors perpetrated by the                     Nazis and other orgies of genocide.<\/p>\n<p>The ridiculous thing about racial purity is that it is mainly                     confined to people like members of primitive tribes who would                     definitely be viewed as inferior by its advocates, especially                     white- skinned advocates. For the most part racial purity                     is not present among Caucasians, who have thousands of years                     of mixing blood behind them. &#8220;Europe is a continent of energetic                     mongrels,&#8221; as British historian H.A.L. Fisher wrote. In any                     case, the myth of superiority of one group over another has                     long since been exploded. For example, the American Anthropological                     Association has recorded that its members have found &#8220;no scientific                     basis for discrimination against any people on the ground                     of racial inferiority, religious affiliation, or linguistic                     heritage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In that case, why does discrimination still exist? Perhaps                     because there is method to its madness. People held in a position                     of social inferiority are ripe for economic exploitation.                     The history of immigration to Canada tells an interesting                     story in this regard.<\/p>\n<p>The exploitation here was originally based on class, the                     division of a single society into superior and inferior stations                     in life according to blood lines. European settlement on these                     shores began with the importation of peasants to till the                     soil on behalf of aristocratic land-owners. Later, working-class                     immigrants were recruited in the British Isles, Europe and                     China to labour in construction, logging, mining, and manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p>When the great wave of immigration washed over Canada at                     around the turn of the century (the one before last), it was                     driven by cold- blooded economics. Farmers were needed to                     open up the Canadian West, and the Canadian government sought                     them in Eastern and Central Europe. European and Asian immigrants                     also poured into Canadian cities, where they were put to work                     in gruelling low-paid jobs.<\/p>\n<h3>A better life<\/h3>\n<p>The immigration question pitted exclusionists against business                     interests. The rapid growth of agriculture on the prairies,                     attained largely through the backbreaking efforts of the European                     newcomers, provided rich new markets for manufactured products                     and the railways. The railways, along with the forestry and                     mining industries, also used immigration as a source of cheap                     manual labour, mostly in remote and inhospitable areas. In                     the cities, sweatshop owners thrived on low-cost immigrant                     toil.<\/p>\n<p>When economic times were good, most native-born white Canadians                     joined the businessmen in regarding immigration as a necessary                     evil &#8211; necessary for the development of the country when there                     were shortages of labour. In bad times, &#8220;foreigners&#8221; were                     blamed for taking jobs away from Canadians. Some were deported.                     The rest were left to fend for themselves among a majority                     population whose first priority was taking care of its own.<\/p>\n<p>But though immigrants to Canada were badly used throughout                     most of the 20th century, they persevered in pursuing what                     they had come here to find: a better life than the one they                     had left behind them. Most eventually got what they wanted,                     if not for themselves, then for their children. The chief                     weapon in fighting exploitation was education. Being better-educated,                     the immigrants&#8217; offspring were neither obliged nor willing                     to accept the wretched conditions their parents did.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/jan2000_1.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"154\"><\/p>\n<h3>I have a dream&#8230;<\/h3>\n<p>Canadians proceeded to make a virtue of the necessity of                     populating the country to provide markets for a growing economy.                     The emphasis switched from efforts to assimilate ethnic groups                     to celebrating their heritage &#8211; but only after it&#8217; became                     clear that many of them had no intention of joining in an                     American-style melting pot. Prime Minister Trudeau was one                     of the most important and eloquent voices for this brave new                     way of thinking. He believed that the Canada we were building                     represented a human landscape that would eventually appear                     worldwide. Here&#8217;s Trudeau in an address to the Canadian Press                     in 1970: &#8220;Canada has often been called a mosaic, but I prefer                     the image of a tapestry, with its many threads and colours,                     its beautiful shapes, its intricate subtlety.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And so we have ended up with the Canadian tapestry. But                     its template was already in place thanks to French-speaking                     Canadians who stoutly resisted being subsumed in the dominant                     English- speaking majority. Attempts to make the aboriginal                     population abandon their heritage also faltered. Thus did                     Canada come around to accommodating diversity.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the initiatives towards accommodation have been                     made in relatively recent years. They were spurred on by developments                     elsewhere, particularly the civil rights movement in the United                     States, which helped to improve attitudes towards minorities                     here as well.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S., there was the voice of Martin Luther King,                     Jr. This persuasive and powerful civil rights leader had this                     to say in a memorable speech to Americans participating in                     the Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963: &#8220;I                     have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live                     out the true meaning of its creed : &#8216;We must hold these truths                     to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.&#8217; I have                     a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation                     where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin,                     but by the content of their character.&#8221; The acceptance of                     equal rights for ethnic groups led to a recognition of the                     rights of others who had been discriminated against, such                     as disabled persons, gays and lesbians, and &#8211; by far the largest                     group &#8211; women. Aboriginal people proved a special and particularly                     painful case, and the struggle for their rights is still being                     played out.<\/p>\n<p>All this was done on the official level; in the meantime,                     ordinary old-stock Canadians were making their own private                     accommodations. It was hard to maintain inter-group prejudice                     in isolated places where the help of a &#8220;foreign&#8221; neighbour                     could spell the difference between life and death. The Catholic                     and Protestant Irish learned this on pioneer farms many years                     ago. An interdependent neighbourliness put an end to sectarian                     quarrels carried over from their ancestral land.<\/p>\n<table width=\"415\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/dotted_quote_line.gif\" width=\"415\" height=\"1\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">\n<div class=\"quote\">&#8216;For here, I want the granite to remain the granite, the oak to remain the oak, the marble to remain the marble. Out of these elements I would build a nation great among the nations of the world. &#8216; <span class=\"boldtext\">Sir Wilfred Laurier <\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/dotted_quote_line.gif\" width=\"415\" height=\"1\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Farmers of English and Scottish origin on the prairies discovered                     they could not only live with their Slavic or Teutonic neighbours,                     but share in their customs and, lo and behold, even enjoy                     the differences between them. City-dwellers found that the                     presence of newcomers enhanced their culture rather than detracted                     from it. The moving force behind the &#8220;rapprochement&#8221; was simple                     good will &#8211; which, however, is not really all that simple.                     It is not, as is generally assumed, merely an amorphous warm                   feeling. It is a very specific thing.<\/p>\n<h3>Good will<\/h3>\n<p>That deepest of philosophers, Immanuel Kant, believed that                     a person&#8217;s will governed all of his or her attitudes and actions.                     He wrote: &#8220;No doubt it is a good and desirable thing to have                     intelligence, sagacity, judgment, and other intellectual gifts&#8230;                     but all these gifts of nature may be in the highest degree                     pernicious and hurtful if the will that directs them&#8230; is                     not in itself good.&#8221; W.E. Hock elaborated on the theme: &#8220;There                     is no moral right to property, to liberty, to life itself,                     in the absence of good will. The dilemma of the state is that                     this condition, as a moral condition, cannot be legally administrated.&#8221;                     In other words, this essential element in good relations among                     groups must come from the mass of the people. It cannot effectively                     be legislated, or effectively policed if it were.<\/p>\n<p>Good will is the first line of defence against the irritants                     that arise when persons brought up with different customs,                     values and habits find themselves living beside each other.                     As long as good will is present, there is always a chance                     of working problems out.<\/p>\n<p>But good will cannot coexist with bad thinking, which has                     its roots in what Canadian-born communications savant S.I.                     Hayakawa called everyone&#8217;s &#8220;areas of infantilism.&#8221; These consist                     of prejudices inherited &#8220;when each human being was too young                     and dependent to defend himself by using his intelligence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>People who are capable of perfectly good thinking in other                     matters can be wildly illogical when it comes to inter-group                     relations. Some, for instance, will recognize that change                     occurs in everything, yet assume that people of a certain                     group can never change. Anyone who believes that must also                     believe that the traditional opponents of their group will                     forever remain opponents; that someone whose great-great grandfather                     was an enemy of your great-great grandfather is your enemy                     too.<\/p>\n<table width=\"415\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/dotted_quote_line.gif\" width=\"415\" height=\"1\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">\n<div class=\"quote\">&#8216;The new electronic interdependence creates the world in the image of a global village.&#8217; <span class=\"boldtext\">Marshall McLuhan<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/dotted_quote_line.gif\" width=\"415\" height=\"1\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h3>Diversity is as Canadian as maple syrup<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/jan2000_2.gif\" alt=\"image\" width=\"181\" height=\"183\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" align=\"left\">Another example of bad thinking is jumping to conclusions.                     In the present context, the conclusion jumped to is that someone                     of a certain group is bound to do you wrong. Anyone who aspires                     to think well should further be on guard against generalizations.                     The most common generalization in inter-group relations is                     that members of a certain ethnic group are all alike &#8211; that                     is, bad in a variety of ways. Fortunately, education here                     again has come to the rescue. By encouraging children to think                     for themselves, it has helped to eliminate much of the knee-jerk                     prejudice of the past. Youngsters of different ethnic backgrounds                     have been put in the position of associating with one another                     in and out of the classroom. By mixing with &#8220;others,&#8221; younger                     Canadians have learned to think of those others as distinct                     individuals and not as stereotypes.<\/p>\n<p>It would be wishful thinking, however, to believe that the                     acceptance of diversity is universal in Canada. The same old                     arguments are still being heard from those who claim that                     Canada&#8217;s liberal immigration and refugee policies are destroying                     the character of the country. The answer to that, of course,                     is that immigration is what gave the country its uniquely                     cosmopolitan character in the first place. It is a country,                     remember, in which no single national-origin group is in the                     majority. The real majority is a multicultural one, and it                     has learned to embrace diversity as central to its existence.<\/p>\n<p>Diversity is as Canadian as maple syrup. It is embedded                     in the soil of an immense nation with landscapes as different                     from each other as Southern Ontario and Nunavut, as the rocky                     coast of Newfoundland and the plains of Manitoba. The pronounced                     differences in the regions and in the lifestyles of the people                     who inhabit them have conditioned Canadians to accept the                     idea that differences are an intrinsic part of life.<\/p>\n<p>This leads directly to the idea that people need not be                     of the same racial stock to live contentedly together. That                     was the core idea of Confederation &#8211; that people of French                     and British origin could build a nation in an atmosphere of                     mutual respect. The vision of the Fathers of Confederation                     is especially impressive considering that they originated                     from two nations which had been warring with each other for                     centuries. In any case, recognition of two official languages                     and two dominant cultural groups gave Canada a ready-made                     foundation for the building of a national society drawn from                     every corner of the earth.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s President Nelson Mandela: &#8220;South Africa will always                     be indebted to the people of Canada and for their solidarity                     with us in the long, dark years of our struggle for freedom.                     We hold in the highest esteem Canada&#8217;s lasting tradition of                     human rights. And we thank you for the valuable lessons we                     have learned from you in the forging of human rights as a                     weapon in our crusade to eradicate the last vestiges of racial                     and gender discrimination in our country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>The brotherhood of man<\/h3>\n<p>It can be validly argued that Canadians had no choice but                     to put aside their differences for their own good, but the                     motives count for less than the outcome. The outcome has been                     that Canada has emerged as a model for the world as it struggles                     against the stubborn obstacles in the way of a viable global                     society.<\/p>\n<p>Canadians should not be smug about it, but they can say                     that they have come to terms with diversity in a world in                     which diversity is bound to become more common. Anyone who                     despairs of the chances of achieving &#8220;the brotherhood of man&#8221;                     when confronted with news stories about ethnic cleansing may                     take heart in the fact that Canadians have pretty well conquered                     most of their intolerant characteristics. And in the process,                     they have made their country one of the most agreeable places                     in the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[1],"rbc_letter_theme":[],"rbc_letter_year":[83],"class_list":["post-3812","rbc_letter","type-rbc_letter","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","rbc_letter_year-83"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>January 2000 - Living in the Global Village - RBC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/about-us\/history\/letter\/january-2000-living-in-the-global-village\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"January 2000 - Living in the Global Village - RBC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"People from different countries are coming together more day by day as the global society approaches reality. 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