Globalization is to all intents and purposes a drawing together of the four corners of the world, what happens in Outer-Mongolia becomes as important as what happens in the Bronx; the things we eat and material possessions we obtain can be from anywhere, an assortment of ingredients or parts from different countries, assembled/mixed in another and sold to a myriad of people who might live in one town and work in another. If we were to put a religion behind globalization the devout belief would be for all of mankind to be equal, of the same color and creed, each man having access to everything that another man has and without effect.
As a world we have followed this belief and produced tentacles that reach ever further away; whilst we recently learn that Colonel Ghaddafi, the forty year long leader of Libya is under threat from within and dozens of people have been killed in a stampede in Mali we may perhaps have no idea that the next door neighbor has recently murdered his wife in horrific circumstance, been dragged away by the police and sentenced to thirty years in prison. This event would perhaps be known by millions of people as they read their ‘international news’ but the guy living next door never knew the convicted, did not know who lived next door and couldn’t have cared less so any connection to the event or location was not present in the globalised reach of the news item.
As computers and the internet broaden our horizons daily the spirit dies on local neighborhoods and community reach. Once upon-a-time trouble in the village was solved by a slap around the head, children played together and were watched and protected by mothers and grandparents as a known collective, the stranger in the street rang the alarm bells, the pub was a spirit of the community were stories were shared and problems solved, not a day out in the country-side for city-worn business people seeking rusticated cheese and pickle sandwiches with a glass of local brew. Heineken can be found anywhere, Scotch whisky is drunk more in Asia than back home and the Americans are starting to assume that Newcastle Brown Ale is in fact an American product.
Egyptian unrest causes fuel prices to rise. Barclays Bank of the UK gets more than 70% of its business from the international markets and Japanese Whaling in the Antarctic receives more headline news than the plight of the fishing industries in home waters.
The world today is acutely chronic. As globalization expands so do cultures and individualism diminish in equal proportions. We are currently faced with the knowledge that one day we will run out of the essential ingredients to survival; stories abound of flooding, polluted waters, endemic spread of communicable diseases, terrorism and hatred of others and against this backdrop we continue to diminish the resources that we rely on without placing serious effort to find alternatives.
It is easy to dwell on the effects of globalization and the downhill path its effects have on the world and its survival but aside from earths ever-closer demise the effects of globalization are perhaps best drawn by the life that we lead and how it integrates (or lack of therein) with those closest to us. Globalization is the damper to community spirit. Libraries in most developed countries suffer from a lack of customers. Community centers are regarded as rehabilitation centre’s for youth offenders and places to avoid by those who wear spectacles or white socks. The local policeman (who quite possibly could have been the guy living next door) probably has no clue who lives in his neighborhood as he trundles to work each day in a central and all-encompassing police station that shouts out “no community spirit here”.
Libraries are falling by the wayside leaving no central place for localization in many cities and towns around the world. The essential and qualified librarians are drifting off into other jobs as their services are no longer required by governments who see the libraries as cost reduction areas. And these staff will be sorely missed; from individuals who took the job because they care about the written word to those who felt the library was a way to reach out to the community, their care and attention is receding and will valuable service will be lost forever.
In an effort to reduce the effects of globalization and as a start to patching the effects it has produced the resurgence of the local library is paramount, not as a reading refuge nor as a game station for Internet crazed children whose mothers need to do some shopping but as the focal point of the community, a learning and educational centre that emphasizes the necessity of looking after those within and not the poor of sub-Saharan Africa or the Panda in China. Globalization makes us feel guilty of situations and events a thousand miles away, we give aid but this is seriously misappropriated and has little desired effect except to assuage our feelings; the little boy down the road who is being harassed by a glue sniffing dope-head receives little comment or shrift and he is disqualified as being a menace and a problem for the government not the individual.
The community centre (library) should be the place of learning, a modern facility that encompasses the place to read, to compute, to drink coffee, to learn, to swap stories and to do good for the local area and by no means the least to participate in sporting activities that are not reserved for muscle-bound aggressors or over-paid bankers daughters with a figure to keep but as a place for all.
From the Community centre is born the resurgence of localization, home made goods, local stories and events, local news items and the caring and attention given to those next door. Instead of the neighbors being icons on the computer screen they become real, stories swapped over garden fences, recipes shared and protection built for those within the community. And from the community is brought the awareness and the learning, the correction to our materialistic purge of the earth, and perhaps we would once again be allowed to see clearly and to do something about our failing planet.
The resurgence of the library as a proper all-encompassing community centre is about the best hope we have.
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