So, the world is increasingly less about individual countries and nationalities and more focused on becoming one collective entity. Is this “team work” or is this simply another form of neo-colonialism?

Globalisation is the process of the world coming together as a whole, the removal of individual countries, organisations and maybe even cultures. This is a bi-product of colonialism, which is, in turn, the process of (mainly) western civilisations moving into poorer countries and practically saying “we own you and all the resources that you hold.”

As more and more countries came together during World War 2 to form larger alliances and trading partnerships the world got a lot smaller. Technologies such as the aeroplane and cruise ships added to this process, and as people were able to move more freely around the world and explore other areas, it became increasingly harder for individual countries and dictatorships to keep hold of power and separate themselves from the world.

Of course there still exists firm dictatorships and separation of culture in today’s global society, North Korea for example keeps its borders shut from most outside interference (mainly western countries like USA and UK,) but the availability of mobile phones and the internet is making it increasingly hard for these countries to keep their business in and the outside world out.

China, as another example, is a dictatorship although one that is becoming increasingly dependent on the outside world for its own sustainability. The Chinese government wants to keep full power over its citizens whilst being able to openly trade with the world. I see this as an impossibility, because already, China has access to the internet (although censored heavily across the nation) meaning they can access things from the outside world and see what lies beyond Chinese boarders. The increase in tourism into China adds to this issue and also the increased level of Chinese people exploring the world and coming to western countries.

Globalisation has some positive points, one of which being that global war as a whole has decreased due to the closeness of large groups and organisation such as the UN (United Nations) and EU (European Union), less smaller entities, like North Korea and communist Cuba, exist. However it has been a cause of a few radical extremist terrorist groups forming such as Al Qaeda.

Another positive is the standardisation of technology across a worldwide basis, different industrial companies across the world can communicate to try and make their products work together to make life easier for consumers all round. An example of this is mobile phone chargers; they want to bring in a standard charging connection point for all mobile phones.

In conclusion I think globalisation can be a good thing in some situations and a bad thing in others. For example, the bringing together of lots of countries into one organisation can be a good peace keeper and problem resolver, although this does further alienate countries that are not part of the group.  Differences between international and individual country laws can create problems for communities when companies take advantage of corrupt governments to get their own way, an example being when Coca Cola went into India and used their main drinking water source to supply their product with water and only gave back sewerage.