UN's Human Rights Chief Just Went There on Myanmar

'Seems like a textbook example of ethnic cleansing'

By John Johnson, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 12, 2017 12:10 PM CDT

(NEWSER) – The top human rights official for the UN has dropped a damning charge on Myanmar: "ethnic

cleansing." Addressing the agency's Human Rights Council, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said that Myanmar will

not allow investigators to fully assess what's happening to the Muslim Rohingya community,"but the

situation seems like a textbook example of ethnic cleansing," per France 24. He's referring to the bloody

crackdown by government forces against militants in the western part of the country. The government of

Aung San Suu Kyi swears troops are going after only "terrorist" militants and doing their best to spare

civilians, but members of the ethnic group fleeing the country tell a much different story of scorched villages

of mass killings. As of Tuesday, about 370,000 had crossed the border into Bangladesh.

On Monday, the US joined those criticizing the military operation. "The massive displacement and

victimization of people ... shows that Burmese security forces are not protecting civilians," said White House

press chief Sarah Huckabee Sanders, per the Washington Times. And on Tuesday, Bangladeshi Prime

Minister Sheikh Hasina visited refugees in makeshift camps and implored Myanmar to allow them to return

safely, reports the BBC. "Hundreds of years they are staying there," she said. "How they can deny that they

are not their citizens?" Myanmar, however, got an important note of support from China, which said it

backed the government's moves toward "stability," per Reuters. Meanwhile, more than 400,000 people

have signed a petition seeking to have Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize withdrawn. (A columnist wrote a

prescient piece back in 2014.)

DECODING

1. Why do you think the UN Human Rights chief considers what happened to Myanmar an ‘ethnic

cleansing’?

2. Why had the members of Rohingya community crossed the borders of Bangladesh?

3. What is your stand regarding the issue presented in the article?

4. Why do you think China is backing up the Burmese government?
CONFIGURING

Trade War Looms as China Hits Back at Trump Tariffs

Beijing targets 3 biggest US imports

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 4, 2018 6:12 AM CDT
Updated Apr 4, 2018 6:44 AM CDT

(NEWSER) – China says it doesn't want a trade war—but it's not going to back down if President

Trump starts one. After the Trump administration recommended new 25% tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese

goods Tuesday. Beijing hit back within hours with its own proposed tariffs on 106 American products

accounting for around $50 billion in trade, raising fears of an all-out trade war between the world's two

biggest economies, the New York Times reports. The new categories of American goods that would face

tariffs under the move include aircraft, soybeans, and cars, which were last year's three biggest exports

from the US to China, reports the Guardian. Other goods targeted include whisky, tobacco, cotton, wheat,

and corn.

As Asian markets tumbled, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing slammed Trump's approach

to trade issues. "Those who attempt to make China surrender through pressure or intimidation have never

succeeded before, and will not succeed now," said Geng Shuang. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that

many of the 106 items on China's list, including sorghum and beef, were included in an attempt to target

states that voted for Trump. But both sides still have a chance to back down from the brink of trade war.

China hasn't said when its tariffs will take effect, and the US tariffs are not due to take effect until May 11

at the earliest. (China announced new tariffs on another 128 US products earlier this week.)

DECODING

1. What is the implication of this news to the world market?

2. Why do you think the Trump administration recommended new 25 percent tariffs on Chinese

goods?

3. What is your opinion about China hitting back its proposed tariffs for 106 American products?

4. How does this trade war affect the global economy?

 5. Does this war affect the Asian region? Why do you say so?

ADVANCING

Towards Asian Regionalization

The center of gravity of the global economy is shifting to Asia. The region’s economy is already

similar in size to those of Europe and North America, and its influence in the world continues to increase.

In many Asian countries, the cycle of poverty has been broken; in others, this historic aim is within sight.

Asia’s extraordinary success has brought new challenges—while rapid economic growth remains a priority,

citizens demand that it also be sustainable and more inclusive. AndAsia is now so important to the world

economy that it must also play a larger role in global economic leadership. Regional economic cooperation

is essential for addressing these challenges. Asia’s economic rise is unprecedented. The region is home

toover half the world’s population, produces three tenths of global output (in terms of purchasing power),

and consistently records the world’s highest economic growth rates. The Asian “miracle” (World Bank 1993)

did not end with the 1997/98 financial crisis a decade ago; for some countries, it marked the beginning of

renewed acceleration.

The question is no longer whether Asia will be central to the 21st century economy, but rather how

it will exercise its prominent role and how its dependence on the rest of the world has decreased.

Regionalism is a relatively new aspect of Asia’s rise.Asia’s economies are increasingly connected

through trade, financial transactions, direct investment, technology, labor and tourist flows, and other

economic relationships.

Asian economies are principally connected through markets— but where markets lead,

governments are following. Asian leaders have committed to work together more closely and have already

taken concrete steps in some areas. The 1997/98 financial crisis, in particular, was an important catalyst

for this new regionalism and gave rise to a range of new initiatives. These have not sought to replicate the

institutions of the European Union (EU), but have rather focused on finding new and flexible forms of
cooperation that reflect the region’s diversity and pragmatism nor are Asia’s regional initiatives intended to

replace global relationships, but rather to complement them. It is not a matter of pulling up the drawbridge,

but of building bridges that connect Asian economies together as well as to the rest of the world.

The stakes could not be higher. A dynamic and outward-looking Asian regionalism could bring huge

benefits not just to Asia, but to the world. It could help sustain the region’s growth, underpin its stability,

and—with the right policies—reduce inequality. And it could help marshal a common response to major

new challenges that often arise suddenly and unexpectedly.

How can regionalism benefit Asia?

✓ link the competitive strengths of its diverse economies in order to boost their productivity and

sustain the region’s exceptional growth;

✓ connect the region’s capital markets to enhance financial stability, reduce the cost of capital, and

improve opportunities for sharing risks;

✓ cooperate in setting exchange rate and macroeconomic policies in order to minimize the effects of

global and regional shocks and to facilitate the resolution of global imbalances;

✓ pool the region’s foreign exchange reserves to make more resources available for investment and

development;

✓ exercise leadership in global decision making to sustain the open global trade and financial systems

that have supported a half century of unparalleled economic development;

✓ build connected infrastructure and collaborate on inclusive development to reduce inequalities

within and across economies and thus to strengthen support for pro-growth policies; and

✓ create regional mechanisms to manage cross-border health, safety, and environmental issues

better.

How can Asian regionalism benefit the world?

✓ generate productivity gains, new ideas, and competition that boost economic growth and raise

incomes across the world;

 ✓ contribute to the efficiency and stability of global financial markets by making Asian capital markets

stronger and safer, and by maximizing the productive use of Asian savings;

✓ diversify sources of global demand, helping to stabilize the world economy and diminish the risks

posed by global imbalances and downturns in other major economies;

✓ provide leadership to help sustain open global trade and financial systems; and

✓ create regional mechanisms to manage health, safety, and environmental issues better, and thus

contribute to more effective global solutions of these problems.

While Asian regionalism is primarily motivated by the desire to advance welfare in the region, it would

not do so by detracting from development elsewhere. On the contrary, Asian regionalism can help to sustain

global economic progress at a time when other major regions are reaching economic maturity.
ADVANCING

Globalization and Media

Cultural Imperialism and the Global Media Debate

In international communication theory and research, cultural imperialism theory argued that

audiences across the globe are heavily affected by media messages emanating from the Western

industrialized countries. Although there are minor differences between "media imperialism" and "cultural

imperialism," most of the literature in international communication treats the former as a category of the

latter. Grounded in an understanding of media as cultural industries, cultural imperialism is firmly rooted in

a political-economy perspective on international communication. As a school of thought, political economy

focuses on material issues such as capital, infrastructure, and political control as key determinants of

international communication processes and effects.

In the early stage of cultural imperialism, researchers focused their efforts mostly on nation-states

as primary actors in international relations. They imputed rich, industrialized, and Western nation-states

with intentions and actions by which they export their cultural products and impose their sociocultural values

on poorer and weaker nations in the developing world. This argument was supported by a number of studies

demonstrating that the flow of news and entertainment was biased in favor of industrialized countries. This

bias was clear both in terms of quantity, because most media flows were exported by Western countries

and imported by developing nations, and in terms of quality, because developing nations received scant

and prejudicial coverage in Western media.

These concerns led to the rise of the New World Information Order (NWIO) debate, later known as

the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) debate. Although the debate at first was

concerned with news flows between the north and the south, it soon evolved to include all international

media flows. This was due to the fact that inequality existed in news and entertainment programs alike, and

to the advent of then-new media technologies such as communication satellites, which made the

international media landscape more complex and therefore widened the scope of the debate about

international flows.
 The global media debate was launched during the 1973 General Conference of the United Nations

Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Nairobi, Kenya. As a specialized agency of

the United Nations, the mission of UNESCO includes issues of communication and culture. During the

conference, strong differences arose between Western industrialized nations and developing countries.

Led by the United States, the first group insisted on the "free flow of information" doctrine, advocating "free

trade" in information and media programs without any restrictions. The second group, concerned by the

lack of balance in international media flows, accused Western countries of invoking the free flow of

information ideology to justify their economic and cultural domination. They argued instead ·for a "free and

balanced flow" of information. The chasm between the two groups was too wide to be reconciled. This

eventually was one of the major reasons given for withdrawal from UNESCO by the United States and the

United Kingdom-which resulted in the de facto fall of the global media debate.

A second stage of research identified with cultural imperialism has been associated with calls to

revive the New World Information and Communication Order debate. What differentiates this line of

research from earlier cultural imperialism formulations is its emphasis on the commercialization of the

sphere of culture. Research into this area had been a hallmark of cultural imperialism research, but now

there is a deliberate focus on transnational corporations as actors, as opposed to nation-states, and on

transnational capital flows, as opposed to image flows. Obviously, it is hard to separate the power of

transnational corporations from that of nation-states, and it is difficult to distinguish clearly between capital

flows and media flows. Therefore, the evolution of the debate is mainly a redirection of emphasis rather

than a paradigm shift.

It has become fashionable in some international communication circles to dismiss cultural

imperialism as a monolithic theory that is lacking subtlety and increasingly questioned by empirical

research. Cultural imperialism does have some weaknesses, but it also continues to be useful. Perhaps

the most important contribution of cultural imperialism is the argument that international communication

flows, processes, and effects are permeated by power. Nevertheless, it seems that the concept of

globalization has in some ways replaced cultural imperialism as the main conceptual umbrella under which

much research and theorizing in international communication have been conducted.

Media, Globalization, and Hybridization

Several reasons explain the analytical shift from cultural imperialism to globalization. First, the end

of the Cold War as a global framework for ideological, geopolitical, and economic competition calls for a

rethinking of the analytical categories and paradigms of thought. By giving rise to the United States as sole

superpower and at the same time making the world more fragmented, the end of the Cold War ushered in

an era of complexity between global forces of cohesion and local reactions of dispersal. In this complex

era, the nation-state is no longer the sale or dominant player, since transnational transactions occur on sub

national, national, and supranational levels. Conceptually, globalization appears to capture this complexity

better than cultural imperialism. Second, according to John Tomlinson (1991), globalization replaced

cultural imperialism because it conveys a process with less coherence and direction, which will weaken the

cultural unity of all nation-states, not only those in the developing world. Finally, globalization has emerged

as a key perspective across the humanities and social sciences, a current undoubtedly affecting the

discipline of communication.

In fact, the globalization of culture has become a conceptual magnet attracting research and

theorizing efforts from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary formations such as anthropology,

comparative literature, cultural studies, communication and media studies, geography, and sociology.

International communication has been an active interlocutor in this debate because media and information

technologies play an important role in the process of globalization. Although the media are undeniably one

of the engines of cultural globalization, the size and intensity of the effect of the media on the globalization

of culture is a contested issue revolving around the following question: Did the mass media trigger and

create the globalization of culture? Or is the globalization of culture an old phenomenon that has only been

intensified and made more obvious with the advent of transnational media technologies? Like the age-old

question about whether the egg came before the chicken or vice versa, the question about the relationship

between media and the globalization of culture is difficult to answer.

One perspective on the globalization of culture, somewhat reminiscent of cultural imperialism in

terms of the nature of the effect of media on culture, but somewhat different in its conceptualization of the

issue, is the view that the media contribute to the homogenization of cultural differences across the planet.
This view dominates conventional wisdom perspectives on cultural globalization conjuring up images of

Planet Hollywood and the MTV generation. One of the most visible proponents of this perspective is political

scientist Benjamin Barber, who formulated his theory about the globalization of culture in the book Jihad

vs. McWorld (1996). The subtitle, "How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World," betrays

Barber's reliance on a binary opposition between the forces of modernity and liberal democracy with

tradition and autocracy.

Although Barber rightly points to transnational capitalism as the driving engine that brings Jihad

and McWorld in contact and motivates their action, his model has two limitations. First, it is based on a

binary opposition between Jihad, what he refers to as ethnic and religious tribalism, and McWorld, the

capital-driven West. Barber (1996, p. 157) seemingly attempts to go beyond this binary opposition in a

chapter titled “Jihad Via McWorld," in which he argues that Jihad stands in "less of a stark opposition than

a subtle counterpoint." However, the evidence offered in most of the book supports an oppositional rather

than a contrapuntal perspective on the globalization of culture. The second limitation of Barber's book is

that he privileges the global over the local, because, according to him, globalization rules via transnational

capitalism. "[T]o think that globalization and indigenization are entirely coequal forces that put Jihad and

McWorld on an equal footing is to vastly underestimate the force of the new planetary markets .... It's no

contest" (p. 12). Although it would be naive to argue that the local defeats the global, Barber's argument

does not take into account the dynamic and resilient nature of cultures and their ability to negotiate foreign

imports.

Another perspective on globalization is cultural hybridity or hybridization. This view privileges an

understanding of the interface of globalization and localization as a dynamic process and hybrid product of

mixed traditions and cultural forms. As such, this perspective does not give prominence to globalization as

a homogenizing force, nor does it believe in localization as a resistive process opposed to globalization.

Rather, hybridization advocates an emphasis on processes of mediation that it views as central to cultural

globalization. The concept of hybridization is the product of interdisciplinary work mostly based in

intellectual projects such as post colonialism, cultural studies, and performance studies. Hybridization has

been used in communication and media studies and appears to be a productive theoretical orientation as
researchers in international media studies attempt to grasp the complex subtleties of the globalization of

culture.

One of the most influential voices in the debate about cultural hybridity is Argentinean Mexican

cultural critic Nestor Garcia-Candini. In his book Hybrid Cultures (1995), Garcia-Candini advocates a

theoretical understanding of Latin American nations as hybrid cultures. His analysis is both broad and

incisive, covering a variety of cultural processes and institutions such as museums, television, film,

universities, political cartoons, graffiti, and visual arts. According to Garcia-Candini, there are three main

features of cultural hybridity. The first feature consists of mixing previously separate cultural systems, such

as mixing the elite art of opera with popular music. The second feature of hybridity is the deterritorialization

of cultural processes from their original physical environment to new and foreign contexts. Third, cultural

hybridity entails impure cultural genres that are formed out of the mixture of several cultural domains. An

example of these impure genres is when artisans in rural Mexico weave tapestries of masterpieces of

European painters such as Joan Mira and Henri Matisse, mixing high art and folk artisanship into an impure

genre.

In media and communication research, the main question is "Have transnational media made

cultures across the globe hybrid by bringing into their midst foreign cultural elements, or have cultures

always been to some extent hybrid, meaning that transnational mass media only strengthened an already-

existing condition?" There is no obvious or final answer to that question, because there is not enough

empirical research about media and hybridity and because of the theoretical complexity of the issue. What

does exist in terms of theoretical understanding and research results points to a middle ground? This

position acknowledges that cultures have been in contact for a long time through warfare, trade, migration,

and slavery. Therefore, a degree of hybridization in all cultures can be assumed. At the same time, this

middle ground also recognizes that global media and information technologies have substantially increased

contacts between cultures, both in terms of intensity and of the speed with which these contacts occur.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that transnational mass media intensify the hybridity that is

already in existence in cultures across the globe. Consequently, the globalization of culture through the
media is not a process of complete homogenization, but rather one where cohesion and fragmentation

coexist.

Source: Kraidy, M. (2002). Globalization of culture through the media. In J. R. Schement

(Ed.),Encyclopedia of communication and information (Vol. 2, pp. 359-363).

New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved from

http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/325.
CREATING

A. ESSAY WRITING. Answer the following questions intelligently.

1. Why do you think global cities are considered ‘global’?

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_________________

2. Enumerate and explain the various attributes of a global city.

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

______________

3. In what manner/ways do global cities manifest global processes?

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

______________

4. Would you consider global cities as engines of globalization? Support your answer with some

contemporary examples.

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

______________

5. Does the Philippines have a global city? Name the city and explain why.

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________
 _____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

B. GROUP REPORTING. With the same groupings, you have to prepare a 10-minute

presentation on an assigned global city to discuss and research on. Your reports should

answer the following questions:

1. How would you describe your city?

2. What is your city known for?

3. What makes your city a global city?

4. What is its ranking in the Mori’s GPCI 2017?

Suggested Cities:

Jakarta, Bangkok, Taipei, Beijing

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Chicago, Boston

Copenhagen, Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Barcelona

Istanbul, Geneva, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Mexico City

UPLOADING

Journal Writing: Write a short reflection about the topic discussed.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

_________________
ADVANCING

Religion in the New Global War

Mark Juergensmeyer

When Mohammed Atta boarded the airline on September 11, 2001 that soon thereafter slammed

into the World Trade Center towers, he left behind a manual of instruction. Apparently prepared by his

colleagues in the al Qaeda network, it instructed him and his fellow activists how to behave and what to do

in preparation for their fateful act. What is interesting about this document is not only the text, but the

subtext. Lying beneath the pious rhetoric of the manual and its eerie ties to the World Trade Center tragedy

are hints about the perplexing issue of the role of religion in the contemporary world, and answers to the

persistent question, how could religion be related to such vicious acts of political violence? The common

sense way of putting this question about the September 11 attack and all of the other recent acts of religious

terrorism is “what’s religion got to do with it?”

The common sense answers to this question are varied, and they are contradictory. On the one

hand some political leaders—along with many scholars of comparative religion—have assured us that

religion has had nothing to do with these vicious acts, and that religion’s innocent images have been used

in perverse ways by evil and essentially irreligious political actors. On the other hand there are the radio

talk show hosts and even a few social scientists who affirm that religion, especially Islam, has had

everything to do with it—and not just ordinary religion, but a perverse strain of fundamentalism that has

infected normal religion and caused it to go bad.

The Role of Religion

What is odd about this new global war is not only the difficulty in defining it and the nonstate,

transnational character of the opposition, but also the opponents' ascription to ideologies based on religion.

The tradition of secular politics from the time of the Enlightenment has comfortably ignored religion,

marginalized its role in public life, and frequently co-opted it for its own civil religion of public religiosity. No
one in the secular world could have predicted that the first confrontations of the 21st century would involve,

of all things, religion--secularism's old, long banished foe.

Religious activists are puzzling anomalies in the secular world. Most religious people and their

organizations are either firmly supportive of the secular state or quiescently uninterested in it. Osama bin

Laden's al Qaeda network, like most of the new religious activists, comprise a small group at the extreme

end of a hostile subculture that itself is a small minority within the larger world of their religious cultures.

Osama bin Laden is no more representative of Islam than Timothy McVeigh is of Christianity, or Japan's

Shoko Asahara is of Buddhism.

Still one cannot deny that the ideals and ideas of activists like bin Laden are authentically and

thoroughly religious and could conceivably become popular among their religious compatriates. The

authority of religion has given bin Laden's cadres the moral legitimacy of employing violence in their assault

on the very symbol of global economic power. It has also provided the metaphor of cosmic war, an image

of spiritual struggle that every religion has within its repository of symbols--the fight between good and bad,

truth and evil. In this sense, then, the attack on the World Trade Center was very religious. It was meant to

be catastrophic, an act of biblical proportions.

Though the World Trade Center assault and many other recent acts of religious terrorism have no

obvious military goal, they are meant to make a powerful impact on the public consciousness. These are

acts meant for television. They are a kind of perverse performance of power meant to ennoble the

perpetrators' views of the world and to draw us into their notions of cosmic war. In my comparative study of

cases of religious terrorism around the world I have found a strikingly familiar pattern. In all of these cases,

concepts of cosmic war are accompanied by strong claims of moral justification and an enduring absolutism

that transforms worldly struggles into sacred battles. It is not so much that religion has become politicized,

but that politics have become religionized. Worldly struggles have been lifted into the high proscenium of

sacred battle.

Global War
 The September 11 attack and many other recent acts of religious terrorism are skirmishes in what

their perpetrators conceive to be a global war. This battle is global in three senses. The choices of targets

have often been transnational. The World Trade Center employees killed in the September 11 assault were

citizens of 86 nations. The network of perpetrators was also transnational: the al Qaeda network that was

implicated in the attack--though consisting mostly of Saudis--is also actively supported by Pakistanis,

Egyptians, Palestinians, Sudanese, Algerians, Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos, and a smattering of

British, French, Germans, Spanish and Americans. The incident was global in its impact, in large part

because of the worldwide and instantaneous coverage of transnational news media. This has been

terrorism meant not only for television but for global news networks such as CNN--and especially for al

Jazeera, the Qatarbased news channel that beams its talk-show format throughout the Middle East.

Increasingly terrorism has been performed for a televised audience around the world. In that sense it has

been as real a global event as the transnational activities of the global economy and as vivid as the

globalized forms of entertainment and information that crowd satellite television channels and the internet.

Ironically, terrorism has become a more efficient global force than the organized political efforts to control

and contain it. No single entity, including the United Nations, possesses the military capability and

intelligence-gathering capacities to deal with worldwide terrorism. Instead, consortia of nations have been

formed to handle the information-sharing and joint operations required to deal with forces of violence on an

international scale.

This global dimension of terrorism's organization and audience, and the transnational responses

to it, gives special significance to the understanding of terrorism as a public performance of violence--as a

social event that has both real and symbolic aspects. As the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has

observed, our public life is shaped by symbols as much as by institutions. For this reason, symbolic acts--

the "rites of institution"--help to demarcate public space and indicate what is meaningful in the social world.

In a striking imitation of such rites, terrorism has provided its own dramatic events. These rites of violence

have signaled alternative views of public reality: not just a single society in transition, but a world challenged

by strident religious visions of transforming change.

Empowering Religion

Such religious warfare not only gives individuals who have engaged in it the illusion of

empowerment, it also gives religious organizations and ideas a public attention and importance that they

have not enjoyed for many years. In modern America and Europe, the warfare has given religion a

prominence in public life that it has not held since before the Enlightenment, more than two centuries ago.

Although each of the violent religious movements around the world has its own distinctive culture

and history, I have found that they have three things in common regarding their attitudes towards religion

in society. First, they reject the compromises with liberal values and secular institutions that most

mainstream religion has made, be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist. Second, radical

religious movements refuse to observe the boundaries that secular society has set around religion--keeping

it private rather than allowing it to intrude into public spaces. And third, these movements try to create a

new form of religiosity that rejects what they regard as weak modern substitutes for the more vibrant and

demanding forms of religion that they imagine to be essential to their religion's origins.

(Retrieved from: http://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/614_juergensmeyer.pdf.)

Beyond the Secularization Debate

✓ There is a discontinuity between research agenda that focus on secularization and globalization.

✓ Social Scientists have debated the scope, nature, extent and parameters of secularization in an

effort to unveil the overall patterns and/or trajectories of the modern world.

✓ Initially, secularization had a strong following but eventually it was superseded by re-evaluation.

✓ Various debates lead to re-appraisal.

✓ Secularization debates have been reframed.

✓ Secularization is understood as a shift in the overall frameworks of human condition; it makes it

possible for people to have a choice between belief and non-belief in a manner hitherto unknown.

Transnational Religion and Multiple Glocalizations

 ✓ Migration of faiths across the globe has been a major feature of the world throughout the 20th

century.

✓ Transnational religion emerged through the post-World War II.

✓ Two distinct blends of religious universalism and local particularism.

✓ It is possible for religious universalism to gain the upper hand, whereby religion becomes the central

reference for immigrants. Religion transnationalism- “religion going global”.

✓ It is possible for local ethnic or national particularism to gain or maintain the most important place

for local immigrant communities.

Religion in Global Conflict

✓ Religious ideas, values, symbols and rites relate to deep issues of existence; it should not be

surprising when religion enters the picture in times of crisis.

✓ The ere of globalization brought with it three (3) enormous problems, namely:

• Identity

• Accountability

• Security

Religion provides answer to these concerns:

✓ It provides a sense of identity

✓ Traditional religious leadership provides a sense of accountability

✓ Religion offers a sense of security

ADVANCING

What is a Global City?

Global City

✓ The idea emerged in the social science literature in the 1980’s, shortly after the concept of

globalization.

✓ It has a central place in understanding contemporary spatial patterns of globalization

✓ It is the main physical and geographic playground of the globalizing forces

✓ The global flows of people, capital and ideas are woven into the daily lived experiences of its

residents

✓ It means power, sophistication, wealth, and influence.

✓ The ideas and values of the metropolis shape the world.

✓ Embodies both the good and the bad effects of globalization.

✓ The global city transcends boundaries of nation-states

✓ According to Sassen (1991), global cities are characterized by occupational and income

polarization, with the highly paid professional class on the one end and providers of low-paid

services on the other.

✓ The lifestyle and needs of the well-off professional classes bring into the global city an army of low-

paid workers who deliver personal and labor-intensive services like cleaning, child-care, delivery,

restaurants and eateries, catering, maintenance, transport, hotels, domestic help and retail.

✓ Sassen (2005) introduces global cities as global command centers of the world economy.

Cosmopolitanism

✓ It is the phenomenon most readily associated with the global city.

Large, diverse cities attract people, material and cultural products from all over the world.

✓ The idea of cosmopolitanism invokes pleasant images of travel, exploration, and ‘worldly’ pursuits

enjoyed by those who have benefited from globalization

 ✓ Everyday life is significantly shaped by commercial culture, retail and shopping as well as cross

cultural variety of food, fashion, entertainment and various other consumables and artifacts.

✓ Consumption is costly in resources

✓ Networks and groups rely on geographic proximity

Global Cities are livable cities because:

• They provide jobs that pay an adequate wage

• They provide basic services, including safe water and adequate sanitation

• They are void of discriminatory practices

• People have access to educational opportunities and health care

• People are not at risk of forced eviction

• People enjoy security of tenure in affordable housing

• People live in communities that are safe and environment that are clean

• The cities are governed through inclusive local democratic processes

Japanese Mori Foundation’s Global Power City Index

It measures the global power of cities using the combination of six (6) criteria:

✓ Economy

✓ Research and Development

✓ Cultural Interaction

✓ Livability

✓ Environment

✓ Accessibility

Features of The Global Power City Index (GPCI)

1. As opposed to limiting the ranking to particular areas of research such as “Finance” and “Livability,” the

GPCI focuses on a wide variety of functions in order to assess and rank the global potential and

comprehensive power of a city.

2. 44 of the world’s leading cities were selected and their global comprehensive power evaluated based on

the following viewpoints: six main functions representing city strength (Economy, Research and

Development, Cultural Interaction, Livability, Environment, and Accessibility), and five global actors who

lead the urban activities in their cities (Manager, Researcher, Artist, Visitor, and Resident), thus providing

an all-encompassing view of the cities.

3.The GPCI reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each city and at the same time uncovers problems

that need to be overcome.

4.This ranking has been produced with the involvement of the late Sir Peter Hall, a global authority in urban

studies, as well as other academics in this field. It has been peer reviewed by third parties, all international

experts from both the public and private sectors.

Key Findings of the GPCI-2017

GPCI-2017 Characteristics

✓ In the GPCI-2017 comprehensive ranking, the top five cities of London (No. 1), New York (No. 2),

Tokyo (No. 3), Paris (No. 4), and Singapore (No. 5) all maintain their respective positions from last

year. These cities have remained in the top 5 for nine consecutive years.

✓ Sydney (No. 10) climbs four spots this year to edge its way into the top 10 for the first time in seven

years. Cities such as Los Angeles (No. 11), Beijing (No. 13), and San Francisco (No. 17) also

largely improve their rankings from last year.

✓ By region, the European cities on the whole score highly in Livability and Environment. The cities

of Asia, which rank highly overall, earn strong scores in Economy.

Trends for the Top 3 Cities

✓ London, the No. 1 city in the comprehensive ranking for the sixth year in a row, further extends its

lead over the competition by improving its scores for such indicators as GDP Growth Rate and

Level of Political, Economic and Business Risk in Economy, and for Attractiveness of Dining

Options and Number of Visitors from Abroad in Cultural Interaction.

 ✓ New York (No. 2) increases its scores for the Economy indicators of Nominal GDP and GDP

Growth Rate, but fails to make any significant headway in comprehensive score, having returned

weaker scores this year in Cultural Interaction indicators such as Number of World-Class Cultural

Events Held and Livability indicators like Variety of Retail Shops .

✓ Tokyo claimed the No. 3 ranking for the first time last year and closes the gap on New York (No. 2)

this year. This is a result of the American city’s score stalling while Tokyo continues to improve

every year in the Cultural Interaction indicator of Number of Visitors from Abroad . However,

Japan’s capital city slips from No. 1 to No. 4 in Economy due to weaker scores in “Market Size”

and “Market Attractiveness.”

Results for New Cities in GPCI-2017

✓ Dubai and Buenos Aires make their first-ever appearances in the GPCI in 2017 with respective

comprehensive rankings of No. 23 and No. 40.

✓ Dubai boasts strengths in Cultural Interaction (No. 9) and Economy (No. 11) mainly thanks to strong

evaluations for Corporate Tax Rate in Economy, and Number of Luxury Hotel Guest Rooms in

Cultural Interaction.

(Source: Global Power City Index 2017. Retrieved from: http://mori-m-

foundation.or.jp/pdf/GPCI2017_en.pdf.)