| Toward a Global Common Citizenship |
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| Toward common global citizenship | |
By Park Tae-woo
The dual phenomena of globalization and fragmentation in the world are creating a kind of conceptual chaos regarding the interpretation of what a nation-state is. To exactly understand the relations between separate political communities, the eroded concept of a nation-state is to be analyzed and also, this requires us to rethink the existing paradigms of international relations theory.
Of course, within a few years or a decade, the concept of sovereign-state will never be replaced by new forms of political association, but there can be little doubt that globalization and fragmentation waves could invite challenges for political communities across the world.
The fact is that we are still not free from all the conflicting aspects of our culture and political systems, as we are witnessing chaos in northern Africa and Middle East nations such as Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Syria, and so on, and this well illustrates why there is the urgent need to create a global common society with a future-oriented paradigm of world citizenship.
In this context, the gradual rise of civil society beyond the traditional paradigm of a nation-state, could give us a small clue into the disruption of forms of competition and conflict that have shaped independent political communities for centuries. What matters as of now is how long it takes and in what form it could be shaped, and with what kind of detailed political ideologies. Or, it could be a continuation of liberal-democratic principles.
The most fundamental question, which could be raised by globalization and fragmentation, usually centers around doubts on how far global measures will progress far in a world of self-interested states, thus, possibly creating only a small space for actively inventing the concept of global citizenship.
Of course it is still premature to forecast the future with a simple sentence. At least, we may foresee two trends; whether human sympathy will develop beyond the nation-state and whether more “cosmo-political” communities will emerge as a result.
If we all admit the simple democratic value that all human beings are equally valuable, we have to move to a new era of common prosperity and co-sharing of burdens. The greater interconnectedness of human beings has increased popular awareness of common threats, such as global environmental degradation, the problems within the global trading system, worsening poverty and human rights issues.
Our major concerns about human rights violations, global poverty and inequality, and environmental degradation, usually form the major ground on which our future cosmopolitan citizenship would be elaborated and shaped.
In this era of radical challenges and common values, we all are becoming global citizens with a common sense of world citizenship even though we are all distant strangers without any firm moral principles to bind us together.
As this trend of globalization and fragmentation develops further, we have to produce a broader theoretical approach to embrace the desirable concept of world citizenship. We also need a strong sense of identification as the same citizens on this Earth. In this scenario, the world will certainly move beyond the old paradigm of state-centered realist approaches into a new multidimensional era of mutual interdependence and interconnectedness, and ultimately toward a common global society.
We definitely need a new form of political community, which is more respectful of cultural differences and more cosmopolitan than previous ones, accompanied by the weakened concept of a centralized nation-state.
The European Union is a good example of a regional approach to solve this kind of fundamental problem. Even through some erosion of sovereign power, member states of the EU are actively embracing a global civilizing process with lots of efforts made to maintain respect for global norms, and possibly, toward a common global civil society.
It is true that modern nation-states have been transformed by egalitarian ideas along with the most intriguing dimensions of political communities, with the basic agonies such as how we could deal with our internal differences of class, gender, sexual identity, religion, race, and ethnicity. Within such a broad interpretation of world citizenship, those differences could be melded into a nobler concept of universal values and a common global society.
Hopefully, the functions of the U.N. can be more strengthened and expanded to digest this grand historical task for a better mankind. The frequent mass movement of people propelled by globalization raises a fundamental question; traditional concepts of citizenship should be adapted to fit the multicultural nature of modern societies.
In this vein, we have to question our traditional loyalty to the state ― conditional upon compliance with international norms to guarantee genuine equality ― with proper chances, and to protect the basic dignity of human beings in a certain political community.
It is right that advanced international society with political pluralism and liberal-democratic practices should have more responsibility with regard to the peoples of failed-states, which include intervention when serious violations of human rights happen. This kind of intervention must be based on the new concept of common global citizenship with firm democratic principles ― liberty, equality and democracy.
We all have to think with more enthusiasm and increased hope about re-inventing the new concept of global citizenship, to allow all people on the globe to be recognized as free and equal citizens to secure a modern form for one global political community.
Dr. Park Tae-woo is president of the Institute for Blue Politics and Blue Economy. He also serves as the honorary consul of East Timor in Korea. He has lectured on major international issues at the international division of Korea University and Kyunghee University. He can be reached at t517@naver.com.
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 등록일 : 2011-04-20 (21:57) |
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예수 그리스도의 아가페 사랑의 통제를 거부하면 악인이고 그들은 온갖 거짓에 잡혀 먹힌다.
예수 그리스도의 성령으로 찬송의 옷을 입고 범사에 감사찬송 입술의 열매를 내야 예수의 얼굴빛을 받아 누린다.
예수 그리스도로 말미암는 하나님의 마음을 받아 행하는 것이 청결한 마음이다.
예수 그리스도는 하나님의 지혜이시고 하나님의 슬기이시니 그의 통제를 받아 그 지혜와 슬기를 누리자.