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(06/12/03 12:41am)
Following the Sept. 11 attacks, news anchors, college freshmen and others have repeated the mantra, "everything has changed" -- often with vacant expressions befitting pod people or the folks at the airport who try to sell you tulips. In some cases, this phrase is true (U.S. foreign policy), in other cases it is mostly bull (national unity). But one thing showing repercussions is the decrease in Americans traveling abroad. The threat of being drafted into the choir immortal, a weak dollar, unfriendly demonstrations and the expense and the misery that is commercial airline travel have all combined to keep us home twiddling our thumbs. Or, rather, to keep you twiddling. Me, I'm in Strasbourg, on the French side of the Franco-German border. And while here, I'm gathering info on the European scene in order to help prepare you and other Americans to return to the continent. Thus, for this week, we'll start with a useful skill: blending in. \nMost of Europe is safer than the United States, but if you saw the same footage of burning flags and Bush effigies that I did, you understand why keeping a low profile might be good. So, in order to move chameleon-like around the continent, I chose country-neutral duds: t-shirts without English words, slacks rather than jeans and so on. When I hit the ground at my first stop, Brussels, Belgium, I was a transatlantic jet setter of indeterminate origin. At least that's what I thought until every Belgian shopkeeper, restaurateur, pan-handler and average Joe crossing my path greeted me in English. Frustrated at my lack of chameleon-ness, I gave up and switched back into my standard university student garb (t-shirt, jeans, baseball cap, etc.). If I was going to get plugged by some terrorist, I might as well go in comfort. \nSuddenly, everyone started speaking to me in French, sometimes German. What happened? The answer became apparent upon visiting Brussels' top commercial area, la Rue Nieue, a giant shopping mall disguised as a street. While tourists were certainly there in force, the crowd was overwhelmingly using French and Dutch (Belgium's two national languages). However, these folks could have been strolling around Kirkwood any Friday afternoon. \nThe fact is that today, American culture is pervasive in Europe, with clothing being one of the most obvious examples. It would be easy to blame globalization's favorite scapegoats -- U.S. corporations -- but the trend has spread well beyond them. According to Dr. Ulrike Mayrhofer from an article published in European Marketing, Strasbourg, out of 4,252 stores total, the Gap has a piddly 75 in continental Europe. The self-perpetuating nature of this phenomenon is seen in the fact that one sees clothes, restaurants, advertisements and other items sporting English phrases composed of words apparently chosen at random: "Baby Shirt," "Happy Street Children," "Bunny Snack," "University Academy," "Original State of Utah," ad infinitum. Best of all, despite all the slings and arrows about American "belligerence," Europe's color this season is camouflage. People of all ages are sporting the green and brown splotches, olive drab, webbed belts and U.S. Army jackets as if they're preparing to flush Charlie out of the brasseries.\n How do you blend in, then? First off, dress as you are. If you don't stir attention in Bloomington, you won't here -- that is, unless your clothes are ironed, and your tie matches your shirt. If you want to really disappear into the crowd, get shirts made up with phrases like "Hoosier Clambake" and "Groovy Kahuna." Believe it or not, between the widespread use of English (except in France), the dominance of UK/U.S. music and even behavior patterns such as loud, extroverted speech, it is increasingly difficult to be an ugly American in Europe. \nIn effect, we are all ugly Americans.
(05/29/03 12:43am)
This June, professor Frank Hoole, my boss, is retiring after 33 years of service to IU. For a year and a half, we've taught a course on globalization, a process affecting most everyone on the planet, especially the types who read college newspapers. Thus, in tribute to the "Doc" and in service to you, I'm condensing a semester of globalization into 500 words or less. It's scary, it's confusing, but it's here. We should at least get to know it.\nGlobalization has more definitions than hell has politicians. Just know this: it's the interconnection of your economy, politics and society with the economies, politics and societies all over the world. Sound vague? Sure. That's because, like wind, we only see globalization by its effects. Kiddies playing Pokémon, university budget cuts from falling endowment values, the war on terror and so on -- all leaves blown into your yard from around the globe.\nArguments on globalization's age and scale vary. Some world systems theorists claim it is an evolutionary process that started 5,500 years ago between Mesopotamian city-states. Some neo-Marxists claim it is a big business plot hatched in the 1970s, like bell-bottoms, AMC Gremlins or ABBA. I tend to back The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's argument that today's round was uncorked by the fall of the Berlin Wall. \nStarting in 1989, a means, motive and opportunity brought globalization to a boil, determining its flavor. The means: advances in communication, information and transportation technologies allowing individuals to "reach farther, faster, cheaper and deeper around the world than ever before," as Thomas Friedman said in his column "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." The motive: with communism defeated, most everyone could make money and buy things. The opportunity: an international system shaped by a superpower advocating free trade and democracy (the United States.) \nAs a result, the nature of international politics has changed. For centuries, governments called all the shots; any other groups were ants facing elephants. But like radiation in a '50s "B" movie, globalization inflated those ants to the size of Volkswagens. Today, governments not only deal with one another, but with foreign investors, multinational corporations, international advocacy groups (such as Greenpeace), terrorist organizations, criminal networks and more. Also, international organizations have proliferated since World War II. Now the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and others sometimes demand changes in member-countries' domestic or foreign policies, or compete with governments to provide services. The result: international politics is increasingly beyond individual governments' control.\nHowever, the real issue is globalization's implications for poor mugs like you and me. \nAdvocates assert that interaction, interdependence and competition will bring more democracy, more cooperation, better government, greater diversity, greater prosperity and prevent large-scale wars. \nSkeptics range from workers and business owners fearing competition in developing countries, to conservationists worried about environmental damage and to adherents of anti-democratic, anti-capitalist ideologies (communists, fascists, radical Islamists and other charmers).\nMany critics fall into what I call the Dickens-Orwell pool. Like Charles Dickens, they are concerned about the impact of industrialization on the working class and the poor (child labor, the growing income gap, living wages and labor rights). Like George Orwell, they worry about the control of undemocratic, unaccountable authorities (intergovernmental organizations and multinational corporations). Who's right? Who knows? But you and I have front-row seats. With IU's international connections, Bloomington is a prime and growing node of globalization.\nKeep this in mind: when my old dad was at the business school 27 years ago, there was only one "international" restaurant: Taco Bell.
(05/21/03 10:55pm)
I can't honestly comment on Sen. Richard Lugar's commencement speech since I was out of town attending my brother's graduation from The College of Wooster in northeast Ohio. However, the impression given by its coverage in this week's IDS, assuming our reporting is accurate, is that some of you found it less than inspiring. This is not surprising, since it was not really written for you. That is, unless someone in IU's class of 2003 was thinking of designing a "global accountability system to track nuclear, biological and chemical weapons" (Associated Press, May 12). By the way, if you are, may I recommend lots of tin cans and a really big ball of twine?\nThe commencement speech I attended, on the other hand, at least was written with the new graduates in mind. Unfortunately, as it was long, and as it followed a rather slow and pretentious invocation, I mainly felt inspired to flee before my arse fused lichen-like to the bleachers. In picking The Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich for this year's address, the college made the mistake of breaking my old Dad's maxim on selecting graduation speakers: "Never give the microphone to a preacher or a journalist." \nI bring up my father because, after 20 years serving as an administrator and faculty member at a university in northwestern Ohio, he has become something of a connoisseur of graduation speeches. And, in his estimation, such events are more often something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Yet, from time to time, he has told the family about one graduation that he found particularly inspiring.\nMany years ago, the vice president of this Ohio university decided that for commencement they would invite and award an honorary degree to the late, great Fred "Mr." Rogers. The president at that time, unfortunately, was a pompous fool, who upon hearing that Mr. Rogers had been invited, ordered the vice president to uninvite him and get someone more "prestigious." The provost refused and, following a tussle, the two reached a compromise: Mr. Rogers would get the degree but would not talk. The speaker, instead, would be the journalist and political pundit William F. Buckley Jr. For those of you too young or too distant from politics to recognize the name, Bill Buckley is a conservative columnist who uses words like "airily," "abeyance" and "jejune" in the course of both articles and public speeches (see his Jan. 10, 2003 article in the National Review).\nNow, in those years, graduation at this university was much more disorderly than it is today. In fact, from year to year the graduates had evolved into a mob reminiscent of the one that cheered the beheading of Marie Antoinette in 1793. Beachballs were launched across the crowd, and the hated president was regularly booed. Into this mix strode Buckley, bravely, if not wisely, delivering a speech in his traditional style. Consequently, it was not long before the audience started chanting, "Buckley Shut Up! Buckley Shut Up!" until he finally did. Mr. Rogers too had to face the horde. As he rose to receive his degree, the crowd demanded, "Sing With Us! Sing With Us!" Stepping up to the microphone, Mr. Rogers replied, "I'll sing if you will." And so, for the next few minutes, the entire assembly was united in a chorus of "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood." \nThe fact is that a speaker's power to inspire lies not in their prestige, but in their ability to reach the audience. Without resonance, at best they simply provide information -- at worst, noise. Sadly, inspiration is not always the goal of commencement speakers or of those who choose them.