Is Globalization Inevitable?

By Omar Javaid
Globalization is another name of dominance of american style free-market ideology and democratic capitalism on the entire planet. This ideology advocates acquisitiveness & competition for the sake of freedom, equality and progress of humanity and demand subservience and commitment for the growth of global circuit of capital. 

Those nations who bow down in front of modern imperialism are regarded as either developed, developing or underdeveloped, and those who beg to differ with the ideals of freedom, equality and progress are labeled as enemies of freedom, totalitarian, extremists, barbaric, and worthy of being showered by daisy cutter bombs. 

In this context the question of inevitability of globalization seems redundant. As apparently the option of not choosing globalization perhaps doesn't exists. Gray has argued that despite efforts to make american style free-market common in all corners of the globe, various different versions of free-market like that of Chinese, Singaporean, Japanese even Saudi Arabian etc. have emerged and one cannot expect the world to become homogeneous as expected by the Americans. 

However the difference between these developed or developing countries is only procedural because all of them are willingly endorsing the extension of enlightenment project and its values within their own socio-cultural contexts. The groups adhering to traditional interpretation of Islam and advocating its political dominance are seen as eminent threat against globalization process of free-market capitalism. 

According to RAND's report 'Building Moderate Muslims' it is necessary to counter the traditionalists and fundamentalists in the Islamic world in the same way communists or Marxists were countered during cold war period, and terms this clash as "war of ideas". Recent invasions on Iraq, Afghanistan, and tribal areas of Pakistan may be explained in the same context. 

So the answer to the question of globalization being inevitable may be less certain as compare to the response to the question of the clash between globalization of enlightenment project and its opposition in the form of traditional Islam.