X.
Many people associate globalization with the fear of losing something: their home, their identity, the possibility of influencing factors that determine their lives. This is undoubtedly truer in other countries than in Germany.
We all know how difficult it is to give political shape to economic globalization on a step-by-step basis. But it is inordinately more difficult to prevent globalization from leading to the loss of cultural diversity and cultural identity. What we are experiencing today is not so much the emergence of a new culture from many different roots. What we are seeing is rife with European and North American characteristics and is therefore largely familiar. To many people, however, globalization means that their traditions and their attitudes are being ousted and eclipsed.
These people know and appreciate the benefits of economic progress. But they also notice how little their traditions, their culture – quite simply, the very fact of their uniqueness – is respected when it comes to easing the way for economic progress, for the global market.
These people feel that their dignity has been violated. They feel like losers and indeed many of them are. Anyone who feels himself to be homeless and uprooted can easily fall victim to fundamentalism or populism. We have seen this over many years, not just in faraway countries. Political extremists are gathering large followings in European countries, too, gaining a frightening number of votes in elections.
We can only stem this dangerous development if we take seriously such feelings of alienation and trace their causes. A globalization that overstretches people will damage society as a whole in the end. This too shows that globalization must be given political shape.
I speak frequently about intercultural encounters and about the dialogue among civilizations. This is a very important topic. But greater account must be taken of the fact that we need this very same dialogue within our own country, too. Firstly: one can only hold a genuine dialogue if all the partners really do take each other seriously, only when there is a mutual awareness and a sense of equal value and equal dignity. Anyone holding a dialogue must accept that he alone is not in exclusive possession of the whole truth. As Hans Georg Gadamer put it: anyone embarking on a dialogue is leaving himself open to the discovery that others may perhaps be right.
Only if we are prepared to respect different cultural, religious, economic and political identities and formative social ideas will we succeed in working and living together peacefully in our own country and in one world.
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