Unity in Diversity: Why we need to do justice to local characteristics and identities while also cultivating a sense of global citizenship

Abstract

We have been witnessing a massive nationalist reaction to globalisation in recent years, the reasons for which can be difficult to untangle. If intellectuals hastily come to the defence of the globalist position and demonise this opposite point of view, we only add to a general climate of hostility that is poisoning the prospects for rational public debate in many countries. Rather, our duty is to reveal what is really at stake in this struggle, to identify the forces that are at play, and to make proposals for how to address the underlying problems associated with ‘real-existing globalisation.’ In short, we need to present the public with alternatives superior to those offered by a legion o..