================================================= Expat Worlds Bi-Monthly Digest ================================================= 7 September, 2005 Vol. 7, Issue 15 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== -=The Globalized Village=- ==== OTHER EZINES ================ ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -=Need a Second Nationality/Passport?=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=ShieldsUP!=- ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== The Globalized Village By Lila Rajiva An Indian immigrant's trip to her small hometown in India becomes a lesson in the fallout of globalization. The road from Madras to my hometown Vellore in the southern part of India makes for a bumpy ride, regardless of one's choice of transportation -- be it a sturdy socialist-era Ambassador car or a newer lightweight import, a crowded dirty bus or an air-conditioned taxi. There are no lanes and the traffic moves erratically and at will, as the black tar fades indistinguishably into the neighboring sand and thorn bushes. One side of the road has been dug up as part of the preliminary work for the Golden Quadrilateral. Hundred-year-old trees have been cut down to make way for this ambitious national highway that is expected to span the length and breadth of the country. My mother claims that this summer feels a lot hotter thanks to the ceaseless construction. But to what avail this additional three degrees of boiling heat in July when the monsoon fails? Nobody pays attention to the two lanes we have now; why should they care about getting four more? Another sign of "progress" along the way is the Hyundai factory. It is one of the many gleaming new buildings -- including medical colleges catering to non-resident Indians (Indians who have emigrated outside their country) -- dotting the road in this part of the country. Globalization is alive and well in the villages of India. The meals on the trains used to be served in moistened banana leaves that were plucked in front of you and thrown away after; today they are wrapped in tin foil or come in plastic or cardboard containers like the cheerfully colored juice packs. The Suzuki-owned Marutis have been joined by a wide array of foreign makes. I read of high-flying elite and their Porsches and Mercedes Benz -- although why anyone would risk taking them out on an Indian road is hard to imagine. I see the plastic knives and forks and cloth napkins in a small town restaurant, internet access in little shops and booths everywhere you go, a small but well stocked air-conditioned supermarket with shopping carts, bored store girls and wide empty aisles. For a foreign-returned Indian, these symbols of "progress" soothe one's guilt for leaving behind the millions who live an attenuated existence in these paddy fields, huts and impoverished villages. It makes us feel that, finally, the world is getting better thanks to technology and capitalism. The campesino and the conglomerate are working hand in hand as the free market triumphs again. But the gaudy veneer of liberalization is wafer-thin. Lurking beneath is a darker picture, easily visible to anyone who truly wants to see. Let's take the Hyundai factory as an example. Ever since it opened for business, water has been in short supply for miles around. The locals don't have the water to drink, cook or bathe. In the scorching heat, this shortage is not an inconvenience but a death sentence. This past year, the death toll from an unexpectedly hot dry summer reached the thousands. How does globalization feel when you have to walk a mile to the well with a squalling infant tugging at your sari and nothing to cover your head from the ferocious sun except a thin piece of old cotton? The Hyundai factory guzzles water, electricity and land. But it's good to have something more than the trundling old Ambassadors to drive around. People tell me it's a fine place to work. And won't it be splendid to see the Hyundais zip up and down the Golden Quadrilateral when it's completed. Jobs, transportation and industry are what globalization brings with it for some, but who stands by to measure the immense fallout borne by everyone else? The collateral damage of multinational companies cannot compete with the devastation inflicted by war. Cancun can't compete with Iraq for the media's attention. But is death from dehydration any less painful than being killed by a bullet? In the state of Karnataka, small farmers like the campesinos at Cancun have committed ritual suicide to express their outrage at the destruction of their lives by multinationals. They are the immediate and dramatic victims of globalization but the damage is far more widespread if less visible. Some indigenous medicines and herbs used for centuries are now in the danger of becoming the exclusive property of corporations eager to patent them. A recent case involved turmeric, the yellow spice used to color rice and other foods in India. In 1995, two expatriate Indians at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Suman Das and HariHar Cohly, applied for a patent for the use of turmeric as a salve for wounds -- an age-old Indian remedy. The Indian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research promptly challenged the patent, even producing an article written in 1953 in the Journal of the Indian Medical Association that quoted ancient Sanskrit texts that referred to such use. The patent was eventually withdrawn. But nine other such patents on turmeric have since been filed. Patents have also been granted for specific uses of other indigenous products like basmati rice and neem leaves. Intellectual property rights are at the core of the World Trade Organization debate between the developed and underdeveloped countries. American trade lawyers argue that since patent laws are not frequently used in poorer countries, their governments do not understand them. They claim that only new applications of traditional foods and herbs are being patented, not pre-existing practices. They argue that without patent protection, drug companies have little incentive to undertake long-term and expensive research. Hidden behind the rhetoric is of the free market is a demand for the state to protect the corporation and grant it monopoly rights. And contrary to the rhetoric of the competitive market, it is the biggest companies -- such as the pharmaceutical mega-corporations with their wealthy executives and fat profit margins -- that that will profit most from this type of state protection. Meanwhile, millions of children are deprived of the simple vitamins that could save them from disease and death. If the market really worked as it should, freely, the campesinos would win much more frequently than they do now. But to frame the debate as one between campesino and conglomerate, between the countryside and commerce is to have already lost the war. For capital-G Globalization -- like Modernity, Science, Progress, or any other capitalized abstraction -- casts itself as irresistible and irreversible. Only Luddites, medievalists, agrarian romantics and the Birkenstock brigade are foolish enough to stand in its way. These are the straw men created by corporate apologists in order to dismiss the anti-globalization movement as irrational or adolescent. We need new ways of speaking. Modernity is not the enemy. It is the relentless nature of a certain type of economic production, which is propagandized and supported by the state. Without agricultural subsidies, the big farmers would be out of business, beaten out by the small farmers. The conglomerates would be routed by the campesinos. The resistance to multinationals is not a resistance to globalization. It is a demand to retain the perspective of the village, the perspective of all that is human. What we need today are activists for globalization -- but a humane globalization, not an inhuman one. L. Rajiva teaches at the University of Maryland and is working on a book on propaganda ==== OTHER EZINES & BOOKS ======================== ASIAN TIMES ONLINE Asia most trusted source for news, business,commentary and analysis from throughout Asia and our world. (www.atimes.com). ----- SURVIVAL BOOKS Go to and check it out! ----- japan-guide.com Extensive, up to date online guide on Japan living and travel related information. http://www.japan-guide.com/ ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= NEED A SECOND NATIONALTY/PASSPORT? Expat World knows of a program that has been running for over 4 years now and has added many new citizens and passport holders. We have heard nothing but good reports about it. In our humble opinion, it is the best value for money today in securing a second pp/nationality that is in all the computer data bases and comes from a government source. IT has all the additional bells and whistles, is time-proven to be hassle free. It also has very good visa free entry to most of the world's countries. No matter what your reasons for seeking second citizenship, you won't find a better deal. The time it takes is about 3 weeks from the time application, photos and payment is in hand. Want to know more? Email: office@expatworld.net with pp/nat in the subject heading. Note: EW does not sell pps, we act only as the advertiser for companies working directly with gov authorities to provide what is on offer. ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ NEWS STORIES Style-conscious city flags down bald cabbies BEIJING (Reuters) - In a bid to spruce up the city's image, authorities in China's Nanjing are banning taxi drivers who are bald, wear their hair too long, have moustaches or wear too much make-up, media said Tuesday. The new rules are part of a 10-point plan to smarten up Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, ahead of October's 10th National Games which will draw viewers from across the country, the Chinese news Web site www.sina.com.cn said Tuesday, citing the Nanjing Morning Post. "Male taxi drivers cannot have long hair or strange hairstyles, cannot be bald and cannot grow moustaches or goatees," the report said. "Women drivers must not use too much make-up and should wear appropriate clothes." The report did not mention penalties for drivers that break the rules, but did say that cabbies who refused to pick up passengers could be kept off the streets for up to 15 days. The strict code comes at a time when middle-class Chinese are embracing all kinds of fashion thanks to two decades of market reforms that have rendered the Mao suit a relic of the past. --- Dog training for husbands THE BBC has apologised over a show which tells women how to train their husbands like dogs. Viewers said the program, Bring Your Husband To Heel, was "sexist, offensive and degrading". The corporation's website has been besieged by complaints, with one saying: "If this was a woman being trained as a dog, the program would not have been aired." Other viewers described the show, which features animal trainer Annie Clayton, as "grossly insulting" and "scandalous drivel". --- School to let students swear A BRITISH secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - but no more than five times a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, it will be "spoken to" at the end of the lesson. The astonishing policy, which the school says will improve the behaviour of pupils, was condemned by parents' groups and MPs yesterday. They warned it would backfire. Parents were told of the plan, which begins when term starts next week, in a letter from the Weavers School in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. ----- London Zoo exhibit: Humans LONDON (AFP) — London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition Thursday — eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty. The mammals were chosen from dozens of hopefuls kept amused at the central London zoo with games and music. "I actually think the fig leaves will be enough to cover us up, it's no worse than a swimming pool," said volunteer Simon Spiro, 19, from New Malden, south of the British capital. Spiro, selected from dozens of hopefuls in an Internet competition, said he was excited by the prospect of monkeying around on the zoo's Bear Mountain. "I'm a veterinary student so the idea of working for a zoo was something that appealed to me. "I thought it would be fun and interesting because I'm an outdoorsy kind of person," he said. Brendan Carr, 25, from Aylesbury, southern England, wrote a poem in his bid to get on the mountain. "I'm funky like a monkey and as cool as a cat, talk more than a parrot, up all night like a bat," it went. "I got a laugh like a hyena but get the hump like a camel, so cover me in fig leaves as I'm the ultimate mammal." ----- Oxymoron: waste management ----- "What's another word for thesaurus?" -- Steven Wright. ----- "... I told her the thing I loved most about her was her mind... because that's what told her to get into bed with me naked..." -- Steven Wright ----- Q: What do you do with 365 used rubbers? A: Make a tire and call it a good year. ----- Did you hear about the blonde who shot an arrow into the air? She missed. ----- A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face and the egg is frowning and looking put out. The egg mutters to no one in particular, "I guess we answered that question." ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ ShieldsUP! The Internet's quickest, most popular, reliable and trusted, free Internet security checkup and information service. And now in its Port Authority Edition, it's also the most powerful and complete. Check your system here, and begin learning about using the Internet safely. Go to and follow the "Shields Up" links. ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.17 ISSUE 06) Table of Content: - GETTING THE UPGRADES - BITS & PIECES - A SECOND PASSPORT - PANAMA INFO - THE KNOWLEDGE BOX - LIVING AND WORKING IN GERMANY, IT COULD BE A TAX DISASTER - RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT! - BEATING THE BUREAUCRATS - THE LETTER YOU SHOULD ALWAYS CARRY IN YOUR POCKET - EXPAT WORLD'S PRIVACY WORLD - BEYOND "1984" - REAL ID ACT HAS PROBLEMS - CROOKED COPS ARE ENEMIES TO FREEDOM - A LETTER TO EXPAT WORLD - LETTER FROM AMERICA - MORE COVER UPS AND LIES - DAY 114 OF BUSH'S SILENCE - AMERICA'S LIMITS - THE OFFSHORE WORLD by EXPAT WORLD - CANADIAN COMPANIES STASH OVER US $88 BILLION IN THE CARRIBEAN - EXPAT WORLD'S WORLD OF PRIVACY - FIGHTING BACK - INTERNATIONAL SNIPS AND CLIPS - AROUND THE WORLD With EXPAT WORLD - SAINT-PIERRE & MIQUELON -- Where France Meets North America - CRAPPER RAPPER - NUDES & PRUDES - MURPHY'S LAW YOU MISSING SO MUCH Each week the EXPAT WORLD DIGEST gives you just a smattering of what you can find in the EXPAT WORLD newsletter that we produce once a month. 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