Ezra on Globalization and His Generation

In a classroom an American-Nepali student, born in Bangkok raised in Kathmandu, discusses legislation recently passed in Pakistan with an Egyptian friend when the bell rings. The student packs his bag, made by a Korean company, turns on his music player, manufactured in China, assembled in California, and begins to rock to a Japanese song, Sakura Sake. Suddenly, his phone informs him he has received an email from his friend in Copenhagen, sent via a server in Singapore, discussing the recent climate change treaty talks, where 180 nations were present -- all of this happening in rural Massachusetts.

The reoccurring theme: a phenomenon known as “globalization”.

Globalization is seen by many as the last piece of a puzzle to unite a fast shrinking world. An idea so brilliant that by its power alone the evils of the world will be packaged in a box labeled “To Mao, with love” then recycled by China into high quality polyethylene, and sold back to the West for large amounts of cash under the global pseudonym, ‘the iPhone.’

All lies (well, mostly). Globalization is an entirely neutral force, if you can even call it a ‘force.’  A ‘reaction’ would be much more fitting as globalization has no ‘energy’ of its own.  Rather, it is the culmination of developments in technology and cultural integration that have established an all-encompassing network that, as a commercial, consequence, created globalization.

Presently, the world looks like mismatched puzzle pieces jammed tightly together in ways that never should have been. My own personal heritage is a testament to this complicated global puzzle -- but my identity is the least of an increasingly dysfunctional world’s problems. The lack of cooperation among nations is, however.

The world’s expanding population, the misuse of migrant labor, the lack of affordable health care, and unsustainable economics threaten the fragile balance of the world.  Plus, we face the depletion of water, energy, and food supplies -- the world’s essential resources. The time for the nations to forgo their selfish inhibitions has come; the stakes are too high to continue playing this global Russian roulette.

The model of international cooperation, or lack thereof, being used today is an outdated remnant of a post-imperialist world. Efforts to create a more united and peaceful planet through international organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, have not met the demands of the more global twenty-first century – witness the recent failure of the Copenhagen conference.

Therefore, at the start of this new century, it is critical that the next generation of youthful global citizens study deeply political science, history, literature, religion and economics to initiate the democratic reform that is required.

At the moment though, the ideas of my generation, myself included, are too raw to take up the mantle of the future -- but in time, with the right ethic, attitude, compassion, and guidance, I truly believe, we can provide fresh light to our increasingly interconnected global village, all the way to Kathmandu.

Terras Irradient

 

Ezra Summarizes His Life and World

Life has taught me everyone is a product of his or her own experiences. After two years in America, I have realized that I draw from a well of perspective vastly different from my friends who have grown up here. 

For sixteen years, I lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, son of an American human rights worker and a Nepaii designer/political activist.  Yet, living in the States now, it’s hard to imagine a more stark contrast than the ‘average’ American with a $47,000 GDP per capita and a village Nepali often living on less than $100/month. 

When the movie Slumdog Millionaire came out last year, friends came to me and expressed their shock at the state of poverty in South Asia.  It reminded me, once again, of our remarkably different backgrounds. For them, life never entailed walking to their mother’s boutique side-by-side with ragged kids their age whose hands were always tugging my shirt and stretched out begging for money. That simply wasn’t their reality. 

But it was mine. 

At times it is this disparity in life experience, more than the disparity in wealth that is so difficult for me to grasp. Yet, the best advice I gained from the Hindu-Buddhist world was that patience, compassion, and understanding are more powerful ideas than most forms of judgment when observing either side of the world. 

I remember the day last year, my first year in the States, when I walked into the dining hall prepared for a wonderful array of delectable, abundant American food. Unfortunately, moments later, a full-out food fight descended. For the first time at NMH, and hopefully the last, I felt genuinely angry. Slowly though, my anger subsided into reflective melancholy.  

While sitting on the steps of the dining hall, I saw an image of the child outside my mother’s boutique in Kathmandu begging for any form of sustenance.

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the food fight ended, and six hundred kids came streaming out of the dining hall some seemingly shocked, some thrilled, and some oddly sadistic -- but most simply gone, while I returned to help, in the only way I could, with the clean-up. 

Another day on a high school campus in America, a bad experience, but ‘thus is life.’ One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from that day, and my seventeen years is that inevitably good and bad happen.

However, we are capable of being conscious, self-aware human beings, and therein lies our greatest power -- no matter what we experience -- we have the power to transcend good and bad.  We have an amazing penchant for learning, growing, and helping each other, and using those skills we can create meaningful life lessons. 

Without a doubt life itself has been my greatest source of education and influence. The power of life has inspired me to my greatest achievements and my proudest moments. Observing others' seemingly thoughtless actions has influenced me to care deeply about the world and people around me. Life has filled me with a keen desire to affect change in myself and those around me; it has given me the power to be a pillar of strength for my friends when they’ve felt like falling, and a light for my family when they felt lost.

Having said that, it has also humbled me to my most awestruck moments and broken me to my most vulnerable self. It had me on my knees in crestfallen disappointment after we lost our semifinal New England soccer game, and had me rolled up sobbing after my grandfather passed away. 

Life in all its grandeur and pain is without a doubt the single most powerful intellectual experience I have ever known.  It is powerful though, not because I understand life, but because I don’t understand life.  

Ezra Man Leslie

December 2009