What I discovered in Global sociology?

   After going over this interesting book, I figured out that we should work more intensively on the convergence of views between international communities to understand their image in the mirror of others and fill in the gaps, which could be the way towards the renaissance.

This book comparably captured five societies; Germany, Mexico, Egypt, Japan, and San peoples of Namibia in Africa. It examined the extent to which they are globalized and globalizing, and how these societies react to globalization process in terms of culture, habits, social behaviors, values, including various orientations towards many issues.

Cover of the book

As the world affairs are remarkably interwoven, the argument of this book stresses that not all of these societies encounter the changeable globalization process to the degree they end up with eliminated domestic sociopolitical and cultural values. For instance, Japan, as I could describe it also, is globalized outwardly, but inwardly this process couldn't take hold on. In other words, Japan received lots of things from abroad which can be found everywhere as kind of commercial manifestations; however, Japanese landscape indicates how they fended off any attempt to change the sociocultural values they believe in domestically. Furthermore, they received globalization in a way casts its benefits in favor of developing the country in many fields which ended up having a leading role in the global economy and technology. I could say Japan aims to import what strengthens its economy with new strategies opening up its gates for this.

On the other hand, I found out that Japan is suffering from social dilemmas resulted by restrictive social rules that Japanese social fabric infuses into the minds of generations. Not just that, I find the institutional life is stressful to lead to the high rate of suicide and social isolation. As the matter failure is something shameful there, even if not shameful, the status quo leaves a strong inward feeling that it's shameful to be failed, you should work hard and follow the rules because the environment is motivating to keep on working. It's the industrious brand of societies.

Therefore, the Japanese official sphere is struggling to put an to the suicide phenomenon, which I personally consider nonsense that Japanese committing this, as they live up their enormous accomplishments, which make their totally perfect in comparison to other societies that could barely secure enough sources for their peoples.  

In this context, Germany applied the same approach, its gates are welcoming various cultures to take place. But, Germans still have a solid attitude towards maintaining their values whatever the globalization brings in. Shortly after WWII, Germany followed up a policy based on openness strategy, which peaked with its educational and research efforts that significantly and unprecedentedly opened its gates since the 1980s and onward bringing in new knowledge and academic experiences which are being emerged with the German scientific ground. This what Germany wants; sophistication in many fields leaving the free choice to the domestic cultures whether to be globalized and catch up with new values. Germany asserts on diversity. 

Regarding other societies, I could find Egypt has a chance to upgrade with many things if the syndrome of democracy, as the dictatorships find, is interpreted and then applied in another way. I can't touch upon a reality of globalizing democracy though, in such societies, it seems to me, they are totally being changed and noticeably receiving lots of things within their communities, but in regards to democracy, human rights, pluralism ... etc, not at all!

These values must be globalized in such societies as they are very significant to revive them and get them out of these closed domains under this authoritarianism. Thus, Egypt is plagued by this, even flagrantly by corruption and international debts. As a result, the development process is at snail pace, nothing new in terms of development. The sociocultural landscape is receptive and conducive to change; however, religious values seemingly have no way to be changed as the Egyptian society has been religious where religious mainstream has been influential. 

Arriving at Mexico, I could argue over by saying that Mexico has a very golden chance to get rid of obstructive dilemmas have been hovering over for many decades. There are brave attempts to get the country out of the cycle of corruption, violence which is really terrible and concerns the international community. This issue led the current U.S. president Donald Trump to convince his voters and administration that Mexican migration movement to the USA poses a threat warning of their crimes. So he asked for build a wall at the borders with Mexico to curb it. Indeed, reading about the poverty rate and the inability of the government to come up with a strong policy of containment, left the country messed up!

I think Mexico could survive even more with strenuous efforts by taking advantage of its strategic agreements with the U.S.A and Canada; as well as, by opening up horizons with the outside world.

Finally, what I could express about San peoples, it's a very interesting case study with globalization, as they are almost out of reach in this, it might be a chance to experience globalization and change their situation to be better off. I can't be sure if those people really want to see how their societies turning upside down eliminating everything they used to live with! 

Undoubtedly, this change would bring up new phenomenon to this world if globalization swept these societies in Africa which I hope that will end lots of difficulties they are struggling to overcome, like hunger, poverty, crimes, so on and so forth. 

Finally, I believe that change could bring the better, and building a global society open to a myriad of paradigms from the world over to be collected into the same place, is a solid solution for many dilemmas and fill the gaps. Seriously though, I touched upon how Bedouin community, a small group has special nomadic lifestyle, in my area Palestine and in Israel when they began interacting with the modern societies surrounding them especially in Israel, which is a westernized country, where some of them have totally different lifestyles now, to the degree that it's incredible how their life became something new, so living at shacks and tents with camels and cattle not anymore!

   

Global peace; an indication of reformation if cultural aspect takes a solid hold on.

  Global Peace Index for this year indicates that "The results of the 2018 GIP find that the global level of peace has deteriorated by 0.27 % in the last year, marking the fourth successive year of deteriorations. Ninety-two countries deteriorated, while 71 countries improved."  

The report continues addressing the level of peacefulness retreated, "As a result of growing authoritarianism, unresolved conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, and increased political instability across the world."

I want to jump over these statements and take a deeper look into the real factors behind these conflicts, which many are found, like dehumanization, sectarianism, the plague of dominance, chauvinism ... etc. which lead those people to fight bloody battles. As I think, the attempt to tackle this isn´t taken advantage of significantly, ignoring the fact that global societies if managed wisely, could play a role to eliminate the so-called conflict phenomenon by strengthening cultural ties. How this occurs?

First of all, languages constitute a bridge to melting pot with the cultures of other nations, which is a strong way to incentify people to stand up and see the others from different perspectives. As the world's affairs are being interwoven more than ever in this technological era, globalizing cultures could be employed to get lots of societies out of the cycle of violence-agitated incitement; as well as, stereotypes that enhance misconception.

To carry this out, media outlets should be employed to deviate from incitement or other hate/filled forms, as they are quite biased in the world over, especially the platforms of freelance media whose reporters transfer a totally different reality from societies where they report, as they only capture testimonies that don't necessarily represent the public opinion of the vast majority on certain issues. Therefore, the revolution of freelance reporters on media has taken a spacious place, which spills over into the well-known international media platforms. Not to mention, social media is skyrocketing in transferring the domestic knowledge out without considering that each society has both negativity and positivity in many matters, which this doesn't highlight that doesn't represent the vast majority, resulting in dehumanization within the receptive communities whose individuals don't try out exploring the facts by their own eyes, either.

Therefore, expanding cultural exchange out and globalizing it to reach even remote communities can play a good role in restraining misconception towards other nations. The matter must not be responded with fighting to overcome these conflicts or instability, in general. 
In today's world, national boundaries should welcome diversity, as GIP also states that, "In the globalized world, the sources of many of these challenges are multidimensional, increasingly complex and span national borders. For this reason, finding solutions to these unprecedented challenges requires fundamentally new ways of thinking."

These ways of thinking should include strategies to gather cultural elites in all communities and agree on the process of global cooperation to spread out a message of understanding through learning the others' languages to achieve peace. Moreover, the success of this process can be achieved by exerting the efforts of the international organizations that are staunch tools to build on. 

"Without peace, it won't be possible to achieve the levels of trust, cooperation or inclusiveness necessary to solve these challenges, let alone empower the international institutions and organizations necessary to help address them." GIP

A big role is placed on government who must accept the reality of globalizing new cultures in their lands and set up projects for this. Undoubtedly, the conflict of identity and ideologies stand out to fight all kinds of such reformations for our global community; as we see authoritarian regimes vs. democratic regime, which put this process into a closed cycle eroding openness towards the world. This can be tackled with more initiatives to overcome fanaticism that has recently been dominating in the world, especially in Europe where the rise of populists led many governments to be ruled by them, who have anti-globalization agenda. This populist sensation is increasingly growing and reaching out almost all walks of social life.  
Of course, this leads people to dehumanizing others and despising their cultures. Therefore, the growing global community should work hard to hold off this by opening up more communication channels in order to bridge understanding.    

In Rawabi 

A social dilemma in our Palestinian society ... 

I came across a post on social media calling for practicing more pressure on families to curb birthrate as much as possible to reduce global poverty. It also suggests certain punishment against those who don´t comply with the rule. 
Apparently, there are more having the issue I had suggested once about. But, punishing parents as such isn´t the solution. The process can be managed by introducing people to the implications; bringing many children under these circumstances will deny them many rights. 

The most important thing, it's evidently proven that a big percentage of those who have many children couldn't raise them well, they lost control over them to end up with a bad upbringing.

Although it plays somewhat instrumentally, threatening people with punishment isn't the perfect proposal to poverty problem, just make them automatically aware of the danger of bringing many children under the same roof, especially in poor or conflict-troubled areas. 

Here in Palestine, with the unpromising status quo, most of the current generation is still underage, which indicates that the remaining geographical space won´t absorb them in the next years. If we make a quick account considering those children will get married when they grow up and then bring more, this will create population inflation in the remaining area that is being shrunk under the Israeli occupation. 

A map clarifies the West Bank which divided
into areas A, B, and C. Source: ScienceDirect

Basically, Palestinians are allowed to expand only within areas (A) and (B), which cover a tiny area surrounded by area (C) from all directions, which represents 60% of the West Bank entirely and under the Israeli military rule. It´s a geographic classification was enacted in Oslo Accords. 

The costs of real-estates are skyrocketing, which means that there won´t be available places or flats for each individual to be able to establish his own family. He´ll finally go to live at his family´s house and maybe another brother would do the same. Thus, this house will be very packed and unbearable for the living, they will undoubtedly end up making troubles due to the challenges surround them.

Not to mention, the overwhelming culture here still imposes on people to bring as many children as possible, and sometimes for certain reasons, when the child is female, women might be required to get into this process over and over again until the child is male. I can imagine if she has failed to get it successfully maybe after 6 times, this guy will get stuck with a big burden because of tough social rules. Indeed, it has happened lots of times, and it must stop! We are in need of a well-educated and skilled generation. To achieve this, we are required to organize birthrate to make the familial situation controllable.