TCWD midterms

• The top human rights official for the UN has dropped a damning charge on Myanmar: "ethnic cleansing"
• Myanmar will not allow investigators to fully assess what's happening to the Muslim Rohingya community
• The situation in Myanmar seems like a textbook example of "ethnic cleansing"
• The government of Aung San Suu Kyi swears troops are going after only "terrorist" militants and doing their best to spare civilians, but members of the ethnic group fleeing the country tell a much different story of scorched villages of mass killings
• As of Tuesday, about 370,000 Rohingya had crossed the border into Bangladesh
• The US joined those criticizing the military operation in Myanmar
• Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited refugees in makeshift camps and implored Myanmar to allow them to return safely
• Myanmar got an important note of support from China, which said it backed the government's moves toward "stability"
• More than 400,000 people have signed a petition seeking to have Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize withdrawn
• Rohingya


  Indo-Aryan people group that reside in western Rhakine
• Conflict between Myanmar (then Burma) and Rohingya


  Started in the second world war
• Rohingyas did not receive the promised autonomous state after Burma achieved independence from British rule in 1948
• Burma (now Myanmar) recognized Rohingya as illegal citizens in 1982 when they passed a citizenship law which recognized 135 ethnic groups but the Rohingya were not included
• 1.4 million Rohingya people have been denied citizenship and remained stateless
• August 25, 2017 'ethnic cleansing' catastrophe


  1. Rohingya militants targeted about 30 police posts and an army base

  2. Caused the Myanmar military forces to carry out a systematic and targeted campaign of terror against Rohingya

  3. Amnesty International - Myanmar military also raped and abused Rohingya women and girls

  4. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - International humanitarian aid has been blocked, preventing necessities like vegetables, milk and medicines

  5. Estimated 13,000 Rohingya, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the month after the violence broke out

  6. 730,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh
• Brandt Line


  An imaginary line drawn up by Willy Brandt in 1980s to show the growing income inequality between countries above the line (the 'richer North') and countries below the line (the 'poorer South')
• Differences between Global North and Global South

  • North: Far from Equator, Lower birth rates, Higher HDI, Higher life expectancy, Developed countries, Low infant mortality rate, Higher GDP per capita, High adult literacy rate
  • South: Tends to be near to equator, Higher birth rates, Lower HDI, Lower life expectancy, Less developed/Developing countries, High infant mortality rate, Lower GDP per capita, Low adult literacy rate
• Richer countries are almost all located in the Northern Hemisphere, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand
• Poorer countries are mostly located in tropical regions and in the Southern Hemisphere
• Over time it was realised that the view of the North-South divide was too simplistic as countries such as Argentina, Malaysia and Botswana all have above global average GDP (PPP) per capita, yet still appear in the 'Global South', and countries such as Ukraine appear to be now amongst a poorer set of countries
• Despite very significant development gains globally which have raised many millions of people out of absolute poverty, there is substantial evidence that inequality between the world's richest and poorest countries is widening
• In 1820 western Europe's per capita income was three times bigger than Africa's but by 2000 it was thirteen times as big
• In 2013, Oxfam reported that the richest 85 people in the world owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world's population
• Global North


  The countries, located primarily in the northern hemisphere, that have historically been identified as "the West" or "First World" due to perceptions of their relative wealth, technology, and global dominance
• Countries in the Global North

  • United States, Canada, Western Europe, outermost regions of the European Union, developed parts of Asia (the Four Asian Tigers, Japan, Macau, Brunei and Israel), Australia and New Zealand
• The Group of Eight (G8)


  The group of eight highly industrialized nations - France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Canada, and Russia - that hold an annual meeting to foster consensus on global issues
• Global South


  The regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania that have historically been identified as "the East" or "third world" due to their having been subjected to colonialism and domination
• Examples of countries in the Global South

  • Malaysia, Somalia, Haiti, Philippines, Lebanon, India
• The globalized world faces 2 contradictory trends - a globalized market opens the prospects of unimagined wealth, but it also creates new vulnerabilities to political turmoil and the danger of a new gap
• The impact of these new trends on the developing world is profound - in economies driven by a near imperative for the big to acquire small, companies of developing countries are increasingly being absorbed by American and European multinationals
• The typical developing country's economy bifurcates: one set of enterprises is integrated into the global economy, mostly owned by international corporations, while the rest, cut off from globalization, employs much of the labor force at the lowest wages and with the bleakest social prospects
• There are Starbucks branches in Melbourne and Manila, New York, and New Delhi, and all these branches look more or less the same, representing the cultural homogenization associated with globalization
• Upon leaving the coffee shop in Manila and New Delhi, you will likely meet a child beggar in tattered clothes or walk a block or two and find a shanty town, showing the undersides of globalization
• Spaces of affluence in the developing world may mirror the Global North, while spaces of underdevelopment in developing countries are found in close proximity
• The underdevelopment of certain states/peoples and their lack of representations in global political process is a reality, with imbalances of aggregate economics and political power between states being prevalent
• Markers of global interconnectedness


  Even global modernity
• Starbucks branches


  • Melbourne and Manila
  • New York, and New Delhi
• All these Starbucks branches look more or less the same
• Sameness


  Represents the cultural homogenization that many critics have associated with globalization
• Underdevelopment of certain states/peoples

  Lack of representations in global political process