The globalization promoted by the United States also undermined its economy. Globalization accelerated the industrial decline of many major US cities; hitting the minorities communities the hardest. The US workers could not match the low wages and lax regulations of Mexico, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia. In the meantime, international corporations continuously sought the lowest wages and fair tax regulations. The new globalized world struggled to deal with environmental changes and global warming. In 1997, thirty-seven industrialized countries agreed to reduce greenhouse emissions. However, George Bush attacked the regulations of the agreement. The American right wing continues to dispute the idea of global warming and its effects with Donald Trump pulling out of the Paris Accords. The balance between limiting environmental warming and ensuring national industrial growth proved challenging, limiting, and divisive for the Americans.
Even anti-globalist groups made use of global products, technology and media, especially the internet, to push their message. Growing anti-American and Western sentiment and a backlash against the values and consumerism of the West in the Muslim world, and views that it was being attacked, led to the growth of radical Islamic thought and was especially appealing for the marginalized populations. They were able to use modern media and symbolic attacks to wage war. The world became increasingly connected and the marginalized on all sides felt increasing disenchanted and more willing to embrace radical ideology.
Overall, the increase in global inequality resulted in a number of differences such as a hungry world set against a world focused on dieting and short against long life expediencies. Despite having attained independence early, Haiti remained one of the poorest countries in the world along with countries such as the Congo and Niger. These poor countries have per capita GDPs below $1000; compared to Liechtenstein’s $139,100 and the United States at $59,500. Even in rich countries, the divide between the rich and the poor increased with only a few people owning the largest proportion of the national GDP.
Global wealth was concentrated among very few throughout the world. Generally, the wealthy have benefited since the 1970s through their investment, education, and contacts. They have been able to take advantage of the increasingly globalized world while those without resources continue to struggle. Globalization resulted in nationalist reactions and growing determination to hold on to local customs, such as FGM (female genital mutilation) and indigenous religions.
A speech form Osama Bin Laden stated: The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced. The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn’t include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn’t respond. In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance. So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Figure 13: Reward for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri
Even anti-globalist groups made use of global products, technology and media (especially the internet) to push their message. Growing anti-American and Western sentiment and a backlash against the values and consumerism of the West in the Muslim world (and views that it was being attacked) led to the growth of radical Islamic thought and was especially appealing for marginalized populations. They were able to use modern media and symbolic attacks to wage its war. The world was increasingly connected and the marginalized on all sides felt increasing disenchanted and more willing to embrace radical ideology. Movement to from camps.
A final backlash came with the British vote to leave the European Union (known as Brexit) and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. Both represented an attack on the globalized world and a resurgence of nationalism, concerns of nationalism sovereignty and economic issues, either the UK spending in the European Union or the continued decline of the white, middle class voter (in the former industrial heartland of the country).
