questions related to the topoc that global citizenship is too utopian that it's not possible...
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
We cannot imagine a society without utopia, because this would be a society
without goals” (Ricoeur 1986, 283). This is the topic of this chapter: what goals do
we – as global citizens – have for society? But what is this “global citizenship”? On
its webpage the University of Oslo tells us that it is not real, but imagined: “A Global
Citizen is one that sees himself or herself as a member of a wider community.” A
global community does not yet exist in terms of statehood, institutions, and passports.
So what we are asked to do is to live as if we were members of the global world in
the same way as we are parts of a local and national community. So what are our
visions of the global world in which we are asked to become citizens?
TWO WAYS TO A GLOBAL WORLD?
It is very popular to speak of the world as becoming one, global entity, and
acknowledge that there is a strong process of globalization going on. But this is
not just one process; there are several, and they seem to have different goals. I
suggest that we can roughly distinguish between a globalization from above and a
globalization “from below” (Falk 1993, 39-50).
The globalization that comes from above is based on the collaboration between
powerful nation states (G 20) and their institutions, such as the International Monetary
Fund and large industrial and finance companies. This globalization has created a
common economic market; there is little preventing money from moving all over
the world. But there is also globalization “from below”, from social movements,
especially in the areas of environment, human rights, health, and the fight against
poverty and wars. In addition, there is the globalization of the poor, of workers,
refugees and asylum seekers, but these frequently have restricted global mobility.
Where do the University of Oslo and its education of students belong in this
tension between a globalization from “above” and one from “below”? Does it
want to have it both ways? The University wishes to qualify its candidates for an
international job market, but also to educate its students to become global citizens. In
his annual address for 2012, the Rector of the University, Ole Petter Ottersen, spoke
of how students prepared for the responsibility that comes with global citizenship.
There is more to becoming a global citizen than participating in a common job