The digital revolution that is taking place nowadays all over the world is undoubtedly changing the face of the planet at an outstanding pace in every aspect. The prospects of this unprecedented revolution are great, but so are the dangers and the pitfalls on family and society.
Aware of the dangers of globalization on the Muslim family, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization –ISESCO- embarked few years ago on an ambitious programme entitled: “Parental Education”, geared towards educating parents on how to educate their children at home to avoid having them become victims of the dark side of globalization.
Going Global
Back in the fifties of the last century a visionary thinker by the name of Marshall McLuhan predicted, rightly so, that the world will become a global village as a result of the technological advance achieved by humanity. Today this prediction has come true, and as a result, the world has shrunk dramatically to the extent that all faraway places and distant people are now next door. This new development in the lives of humans is seen by some as good news and by others as a catastrophe and a calamity.
All in all, this new state of being is here to stay for good and it is gradually becoming a new way of life for all humans whether they like it or not. The fact is that when you live next door to the rest of the world, you dress, eat, think and behave like the rest of the world, and you do not ask questions. And this is what “going global” is all about.
Like every human concept, globalization is not fail-safe, it has its advantages and disadvantages, it helps circulate the benefits of technological advance among men but it also imposes the way of life and the thinking modes of the lucky few on the majority, thereby impeding and destroying cultural diversity.
Many people believe that globalization is the political end result of the fall of the Soviet Empire and the confirmation of the United States of America as the only superpower. Actually, that well may be one of the reasons but certainly not the only one.
Globalization thrived because it was driven by many important factors, chief among them we find: (1) The digital revolution; and (2) World trade.
After the agricultural and industrial revolutions, that changed the face of the world, humanity was subjected to a more powerful and far-reaching revolution that rewrote the rules of modern civilization. The digital revolution turned science fiction into reality in various fields, too many to name: Internet, digital television, teleconferencing, mobile phones, etc. and brought people of different cultures and creeds close to each other. It is a new form of freedom never experienced by humans before.
The second element that made globalization a possible venture is world trade. World trade achieved incredible output. The demand for world trade is reaching incredible levels and the more this increasing demand is satisfied, the more the economy would go global and imposes new codes of conduct on governments.
Globalization actively promotes the way of life of rich and strong countries at the expense of poor and small countries.
World trade, in its present format, is concretely helping start up consumer habits even in most impoverished societies, wherever they may be, and this is made possible by the media that is subliminally creating consumer habits and consumer needs and craving that never existed before within society.
All in all, most countries of the world are willing to go global in spite of the dangers this undertaking might represent, with the hope to benefit economically from its windfall.
The Dark Side of Globalization
Globalization actively promotes the way of life of rich and strong countries at the expense of poor and small countries. This may not be a planned action, but it has destabilizing effect on the countries of the South. Thanks to digital satellite television, these people are bombarded daily by television programmes that celebrate and enthuse over wealth and beauty but also sex, fast cars and luxurious homes, in addition to such negative values as deceit and infidelity; and young children and ordinary non-educated young adults fall prey to this false publicity and crave to act likewise, believing that is the model.
Television channels target a vulnerable population: the adolescents and youngsters who, are trying to assert themselves within their societies and can be easily influenced to take up any cultural identity that is proposed to them in their own language.
As if digital television was not enough, then came the Internet, a more dangerous and destructive media for the youngsters. The Internet, when it is not under the control of the parents, has undesirable effects on children because unlike television it offers a wide array of sites and possibilities that can damage, beyond belief, the education of the adolescents.
This powerful media is credited to have lasting psychological harm on the young because of its strong suggestive material and harmful information.
These disorders can range from: Identity crisis; Lack of self – confidence and self – esteem; Rejection of parental authority; Recurrent state of moodiness and unsociability; Suicidal inclinations; Lack of respect for seniority; and School dislike.
These disorders are the result of the total rejection of one’s society, seen as a diminished and an insignificant cultural institution, the rejection of one’s self and one’s surroundings because they do not conform to the Western model dignified by the Internet, a model boasting unlimited wealth and beauty, and the rejection of one’s culture and religion and, ultimately, the adoption of a life of outrageous consumerism.
Globalization and the family
Many families in the Muslim World today are undergoing a real turmoil because of the bad influence modern media has on the behaviour of their children.
Respect of the parents in Islam is a religious duty emphasized in no doubtful terms in the Holy Qur’an, which also highlights the importance of the parents in the social fabric and enjoined Muslims to obey them and show them much respect and love. Any breach of any of these concepts is an outright rejection of religion because the family is the basic unit of the social system. Likewise, any threat to the existence of the family is a threat to the Ummah at large, and, as such, to the Islamic faith.
As a result of the strong influence of the media on children and the brainwashing effect it has on them they view the family as a restriction of their freedom, social etiquette as outdated traditions, and the local culture as a set of values, ethics and customs that are not in tune with the global culture on offer.
One of the criticisms levelled by some countries and governments against globalization is that no matter how interesting and invigorating this way of life maybe, yet it has many negative side effects. This movement was initiated by the French Government threatened by the Anglo-Saxon driven globalization. The French reacted by promoting the concept of spécificité culturelle (cultural specificity) and setting up international organizations for the defence of French language and culture in the world.
If governments can and do have to defend their interests in the face of the onslaught of globalization by enacting laws and setting up defensive means, the only authority that the family can make use of in this is parental authority, and, in case of difficulty, appeal to religious teachings and Islamic morality.
Traditionally, families, in their extended and nuclear forms, kept their cohesion intact in the face of dangers and changes thanks to the strong sentiment of solidarity that is proverbial in Arabic popular culture:
انصر أخاك ظالماً أم مظلوماً
This proverb can be semantically interpreted in a multitude of manners, and maybe the most important and the most central of them all is active solidarity in the face of danger, threats, needs, and all dire situations.
Families kept their cohesion intact in the face of dangers and changes thanks to the strong sentiment of solidarity.
The role of the family in Islam is to rear the child, provide for all his needs, and educate him in the best practices possible: sincerity, righteousness, faithfulness, integrity and independence, and to make out of him a good person إنسان صالح (insane sãlih). And educate him, also, and this is of outmost importance, into Islamic teachings التعاليم الإسلامية, so that the religion of Islam can be his guidance in everyday life and a protection for him against temptation, vice and wrongdoing.
Parental Education: What is it all about?
Education, which constitutes in its cultural sense the mirror of the life of people and the state of their society and in its deeper sense the fundamental instrument of development and progress, has become one of the major social problems in the recent years. If the majority of developed countries have given enough attention to this problem, the majority of Muslim societies are still unaware of it and its various bad affects.
Parental education consists in the educational relationship between a child and his parents reflected in well-defined practices that take the form of a series of methods and treatments the latter resort to in the various situations that the child faces whether inside or outside home.
Parental Education in the Era of Globalization
The Islamic religion has always instructed the faithful to take upon themselves the education of their children and to think of this undertaking as a religious duty: a preparation for school education and a preparation for the duties of life.
Parental education is the act of instilling in one’s child the values القيم of Islamic morality الأخلاق الإسلامية to avoid having him go astray and to make out of him a responsible and hard-working member of the society.
Aware of the importance of parental education in this era of globalization, fraught with various dangers such as violence, terrorism, drugs, and crime, the Islamic organization –ISESCO– prepared a study entitled “Parental Education in the Islamic world” in the year 2000. The Islamic Organization has, also, organized in 2004 a meeting of experts on the same subject.
La educación parental permite a las familias ejercer una influencia duradera sobre sus descendientes, que puede serles beneficiosa durante la vida, así como para generaciones venideras.
En esta era de la globalización, en la que la libertad que se ofrece es demasiado irracional y demasiado irresponsable, y los niños son inexpertos, los peligros de la perversidad son demasiado numerosos y la educación parental desempeña una función fundamental para regular el desarrollo de la sociedad, en general, y la vida de la descendencia, en particular.
Parental education allows families to have long-life influence on their offspring, an influence that can be beneficial to them in their life and dealings and in the lives of the generations to come.
In this era of globalization, when the freedom on offer is too unreasonable and too irresponsible, and children are inexperienced, the dangers of perversity are too numerous and parental education has a major role to play in regulating the development of society, in general, and the life of the offspring, in particular.
Regulating Globalization
Globalization in its actual format and shape is the outcome of human progress and sophistication. However, it is a phenomenon that has positive impact on too many sectors of life, as well as negative implications.
What is needed today are ways and methods to humanize globalization.
What is needed today are ways and methods to humanize globalization, i.e. make out of it a phenomenon in the full service of humanity, and this is where parental education can play a vital and pivotal role.
Parental education can humanize globalization by guiding children through their difficult years of growth in age and knowledge and experience. Parental education can regulate globalization and humanize its effects by implementing a number of actions through education and counselling. These actions are as follows:
- Preserve cultural integrity
Globalization in its actual format, no matter how universal it might be, promotes the dominating culture of the Western world at the expense of the cultures of the rest of the world, through the globalization of McDonalds, Coca Cola, Walt Disney, MTV, CNN and American music and film industry. These labels are not only brand names but they are the unique cultural reference names.
As such, the gastronomy of the rest of the world is “ethnic food”, its wear is “traditional costume”, and its film is “foreign film” and music “world music”. So, globalization in this, indirectly calls the rest of the world to adopt the American way of life as the universal way of life. The mission of parental education is to highlight Islamic culture and its importance in the life of the Muslim individual and show the dangers that unchecked globalization can have on Muslim society by causing cultural alienation especially among young people. Parental education ought to show that national culture is identity and without identity the individual has no value, because he is only known through his culture and nothing else.
- Enhance morality
Globalization, whether by design or not, encourages through some of its many means, immorality and perversity. Parental education must identify these means and these instances and come up with acceptable and justifiable defence against them. Actually, today, even in the Western world many voices are calling for the moralization of globalization and the regulation of its output to avoid leading the youth astray and alienating them from their social values.
- Redesign religious education
Globalization, in many of its manifestations, promotes material cultural at the expense of many salient human principals. Life is not only about money, profit and creature comforts; it is, also, about faith and moral values. A globalization without faith might be a successful material undertaking, but in the end, it is a phenomenon that is doomed to failure, because man does not live by bread alone he needs faith to direct his life and give him confidence in himself and his future.
A globalization without faith is doomed to failure, because man does not live by bread alone he needs faith to direct his life and give him confidence in himself.
Thus, parents have a major role to play in inculcating faith to their children by considering the way they can teach them religion so that they internalize its precepts in the best way possible. The parents ought, also, to present religion to their children in a modern package by advocating discussion, transparency, openness and reasoning.
Globalization yes, but…
There is no doubt whatsoever that globalization is the ineluctable outcome of human aspiration for progress and development. But if globalization is here to stay, it ought, then, to serve humanity in its cultural and spiritual dimensions. Unchecked freedom, irresponsible permissiveness and wild materialism, the current flaws of globalization do not serve its human objectives, therefore it is urgent to rethink globalization in order to give it a human face acceptable to man.
There is no doubt whatsoever that globalization is the ineluctable outcome of human aspiration for progress and development. But if globalization is here to stay, it ought, then, to serve humanity in its cultural and spiritual dimensions. Unchecked freedom, irresponsible permissiveness and wild materialism, the current flaws of globalization do not serve its human objectives, therefore it is urgent to rethink globalization in order to give it a human face acceptable to man.
If globalization is here to stay, it ought, then, to serve humanity in its cultural and spiritual dimensions.
Globalization has to take into consideration the needs and the aspirations of its focal subjects and targets. It has, also, to allow urgently readjustments in its mission and contents to serve best the human being in his person and his society. It is true that progress cannot be stopped, but it can be redirected in its course, and redesigned in its content.
Family has to be allowed to play an important role within globalization, because a globalization without a soul is doomed to lead humanity to discredit and failure.
Dr. Mohamed Chtatou
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