The Waterloo Chronicles

If you haven't been to Waterloo, you'll likely be surprised by what you find. As well as the two universities, the area is home to RIM headquarters (yup, I live at the home of the Blackberry), the Perimeter Institute for theoretical physics, the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). There's a lot of smart people here. Really smart. Which leads, generally, to some absolutely fascinating events and conversations.

Two weeks ago I attended a panel discussion hosted by CIGI at its headquarters (which is, incidentally, a converted rum distillery). The topic was 'The Dark Side of Globalisation', and discussing the matter were former Chilean ambassador Jorge Heine, John Ralston Saul, writer and husband of a former governer general, and political science prof William Coleman. 

The three of them differed greatly in their backgrounds and approaches to the topic, but came to a similar conclusion: Globalisation, for all its ubiquity and apparent unavoidability, has created many problems that simply are ignored. (You can read about the discussion and watch the webcast here.)

It really got me thinking: Many great empires ended due to their own success. While the colonised lands asserted their statehood through independence movements, they often retained the societal structures of the colonisers. Which means, ultimately, the colonisation was successful.
Is that what will happen with globalisation? Globalisation has until now been a largely one-way process: The democratic and capitalist West 'globalises' the poorer, often undemocratic rest of the world. Will those countries embrace what they want of the West's loaded gifts, and tweak them to their own national purposes before booting out the globalisers? Will we see a number of interpretations of capitalism, some different variations of democracy, emerge in these lands? If that happens, none of these end results will be the same, so the world will remain splintered into nations catering to their own needs first, potentially at the expense of cross-border business and governance. Does that mean globalisation has worked when it fails? 

And is that what we're witnessing in the Middle East? In rejecting a status quo that had been supported by the West, while also striving for democracy, perhaps these countries are becoming the first of a post-globalisation world. It's too soon to tell. History shows that many will fall prey to the power-hungry bastards that often step into a power vaccuum. But at this moment, with so much reform and so many peaceful resolutions* seeming possible, these are fascinating developments to watch.

*Sadly, that's not likely to include Libya.