Changing Perspectives of a Global Community
An old Indian lady rides on the back of her husband’s rickshaw. A Moroccan nomad walks through the Sahara Desert guiding his camel. A young Chinese boy barters silk scarves with locals to make money for his family. A United States high schooler cheers on the sidelines of a football game. A South African man living in a township shack fights for his rights taken away by apartheid. Each of these individuals makes up the global community on Earth just as equally as the other. The global community consists of every breathing person that lives on planet Earth, no matter any individual or cultural differences. The eyes of a South African, Indian, and U.S. citizen show a portion of the world’s perspectives.
Webster Dictionary provides a book definition of the global community. It defines global as “involving the entire earth.” Whatever it is that one says is global, it is inclusive to the entire earth. It may not eliminate anyone because of socio-economic status or race. It is all inclusive to everything on the earth. However, this definition does exclude anything beyond our planet. Sorry, Martians, but you’re not part of the global community! Webster defines community in a few different ways. First, it is “a group of people living in a particular local area.” In this case a global community would be a group of people living on the entire earth. Second, community is “a group of people having ethnic or cultural or religious characteristics in common.” This definition is quite unique to our world since it consists of such a variety of ethnicities, cultures, and religions. However, say the rumor is true about Martians on Mars and aliens on other planets. The cultural similarities on planet Earth would be quite similar in comparison to those on Mars. Third, it is defined as “a group of nations having common interests.” Sometimes these interests seem so far from one another to actually be common, but maybe they are closer than we realize. The world’s problems mostly stem from groups of people wanting their own land to live on and to survive with as much as possible. Whether this means they colonize countries in Africa or Incan tribes fight off explorers, people share a common interest of wanting land and wanting to survive. Fourth, community is defined as “a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.” This definition would not have been applicable to our world two hundred years ago (or even before that). But since curiosity of discovery developed people on Earth have interacted with one another and even become interdependent. Our economic worlds have become so intertwined that if a nation fell through, the whole global economy would be thrown off. According to Webster, the global economy is inclusive to every living thing on our interactive, interdependent, cultural, world.
Webster’s Dictionary provides a unified political perspective of the United States. The Christian perspective, however, differs slightly. Before Jesus time on Earth it was believed that the most important people were those in high status. However, Jesus knocked this belief to the streets. He defied cultural norms by entering dirtyness of healing lepers and eating dinner with tax collectors. He extended the Christian community outside the box that people were used to. After Jesus death and resurrection he extends the Christian community even further. He commissions his disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). All nations, all people, are to be included in the Christian community. The global community becomes a Christian community through Jesus’ commissioning. The Christian perspective approaches the idea of a global community differently than Webster’s U.S. political perspective in that it contains a purpose for each being on the Earth. The poor in societies are not just here taking up space. They are, just like the rich in societies, God’s beautiful created children made to love and praise God. This perspective challenges the idea of the reasoning behind a global community. Are we a global community because we all share the same soil, as Webster would claim? Or are we a global community because God created our land and our lives with a purpose? The Christian perspective creates a global community with not just existence, but a reason to our existence.
The global community has constantly been stretched since the beginning of time. It has developed because of people wanting to discover and own land. Once upon a time people lived in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas (and who knows where else!) without any knowledge that the others even existed. But they slowly became aware and took advantage of discovering new territory. Starting in the 15th century the European empires expanded to the Americas where they took over the natives without much thought. Isbister describes it as “the most genocidal imperialism the world as known” (Isbister, p. 68). Here in our own country that has taken such pride in diversity and acceptance was in fact a killer of diversity and acceptance. Imperialism does not stop there though. Africa was the next target. Innocent locals were named as property and sold to labor in the Americas. In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries countries went on to take ownership of not just people, but entire land masses (Isbister, p. 72-80). Mainly the British, French, and other European countries decided they had the right to name African and Asian countries and draw borders, dividing native tribes of the land. Then the fight for land truly started. The Africans wanted their land back. The Europeans did not want to give it back. The American settlers made their home there killing of natives. And Asians constantly pushed borders. What a mess this global community had become. The first oblivious-to-the-rest-of-the-world natives in each region now were aware of each other in a competing way. They had a chance to become aware of one another in a peaceful and respectful way but chose to invade one another’s being instead. The constant stretching on the world’s people both benefited and caused losses throughout the world. With both losses and costs in all nations, the world is finally realizing that they have become interdependent on one another through these interactions.
Our tour bus dominated the tiny dirt roads as we weaved in and out of a South African township. How out of place were we? Not only because of socio-economic and cultural differences, but because some of my country’s ancestors were the reason these people lived like this. In 1806, the British colonized South Africa. Apartheid, the issue of segregation based on race, developed and still remains an issue today. We walked the dirt alley ways (I use this term instead of streets because it emphasizes how narrow they were) lined with metal-scrapped homes and immeasurable trash. Just two hours before we had been driving through the city highways that were surrounded by sky-scrapers. Was it really possible that there was this huge of a difference between the British cities and African townships located in the same region? This incredible separation did not seem fair. We cannot know if the Africans would be living this poorly if the British had not colonized, but we could observe that their poverty was emphasized because of the British power. In 1994, apartheid supposedly ended as the races were able to start mixing in political and governmental positions. The government even promised to give every family that lived in a tiny township shack a slightly larger cement-block home. This promise not only meant better living conditions, but also the possibility of more freedoms. The government started building homes and the Africans were sharing more equality. But then the government ran out of money and could no longer afford new homes. They broke that promise and apartheid continued. The separation between African and British qualities of living were significant.
How would a South African living in a metal-scrapped shack see the world? Quite unjustly. With little money, they receive little education. With little education, they learn of only what they see around them. So they understand community to be a mix of races where one race rules the other. The dominating race can have basically all the riches they want while the poor race has the shirt on their back. Because of their limited knowledge, this is how they must assume the rest of the world is. They do not have the chance to learn otherwise, because, honestly, would the British power want them to know that other Africans have freedoms? A South African’s view of “community” means harsh injustice. With this injustice, though, the members of a township pull together and build their own community. They struggle with hardly being able to eat, find work, or buy clothes together. They become a collectivist society amidst the individualistic society. In South Africa, wealth means knowledge, but poverty means wisdom. Even though the South Africans have been oppressed, they have learned how to pull together and live in community. Their view of the world may be limited to the injustice around them, but they have learned interdependency along the way.
Vietnam: a name that, when mentioned, provokes a wide variety of feelings in many people. But that is how the world sees Vietnam. How does Vietnam see the world? China, France, and Japan fought over the land for hundreds of years (Isbister, p. 113-116). The Vietnamese constantly tried to fight back, sometimes winning and sometimes losing. Finally in 1954 Vietnam gained freedom from France but then split into North and South. The United States entered as another power trying to force the country into its own ways (Isbister, p. 115-116). The people of Vietnam for centuries were fighting to keep their own land. They wanted to live with their own power and to say what they wanted for once. But so many countries believed they had the better ideas. A fight for freedom would force one to question what is really right. Do I have confidence in the way I think things should be? Do these other countries have previous experience and, therefore, know what is the best way to live? Risking freedom means seeking answers to questions. The history of Vietnam led the people to see the world as conceited powers that took away rights of others. They were forced to learn how to survive and pull together as a country. The Cu Chi tribe in Southern Vietnam built an underground tunnel system, looking similarly to human-size ant farms. When the U.S. fought on their grounds, innocent Cu Chi members were targeted. This underground system kept them safe. So they lived underground in small 2’x3’ tunnels for a couple of years. They could have easily given up but instead they were creative and found a way that they could survive. The Vietnamese people used oppression to be creative, pull together, and survive. Now about forty years later, the Vietnamese people seem to be enjoying their independence, even as a communist society. Their view of a global community has probably changed from oppressive and controlling to exploring independence.
A person in the United States stereotypically has a very closed-minded perspective about the world. It is usually full of ignorance and carelessness for those living in other countries. It seems, though, that the next trend is to grow awareness of other countries. Tom Sine spoke about the world becoming more global and our generation adapting to these changes. I like to believe that I have a head start on the trend. My awareness grew increasingly as I traveled with Semester at Sea. I now think and perceive things not just with American eyes, but also with African, European, and Asian eyes. We are quite fortunate in the United States to have such easy access to foreign and cultural knowledge. Not only can we learn basically as much as a country is willing to give out, but we also are privileged with easy travel access. English is currently the most national language which allows us to get around and speak with people throughout the world. I place learning about other countries with high importance. However, other countries do not have access to this knowledge and travel like we do. Do they have this same responsibility then? It is not fair to say that everyone in the world should be globally knowledgeable if they do not even have the resources to do so. It may then become our responsibility to make them aware of the global community.
The global community is understood in as many different ways as there are sets of eyes on the earth. Through the U.S. political and Christian views, we can conclude that the global community is all-inclusive to every being on planet earth with a purposeful presence. South Africans, Vietnamese, and United States people provide three different ways of viewing the world according to one’s access to knowledge and what they experience as a culture. As the global community keeps changing, perspectives will as well. May we never stop analyzing wisdom from and perceptions of a global community.
