Human Resources and Culture

¶ … Post: Global Conflict: Mass Population Migration and the EU The Brexit crisis reflects ongoing tensions in the European Union related to a complex of problems including the decreased relevance of national sovereignty within the European Community and also the increased relevance of immigration policy in light of mass population migrations into Europe. Individual European nations have also contended with domestic crises linked to the same cluster of issues, which at the risk of oversimplification can be boiled down to economics.

The Greek economic crisis shows that while national and cultural identity do matter, economics matters far more in the fomentation of international crises. Crises generally emerge over perceived or real resource scarcity: those resources can be tangible such as land, water, oil, money, or minerals. However, often those resources are intangible or symbolic as with power, clout, and status. The United Kingdom has for centuries wielded considerable power, retaining global clout and status for even longer than the United States.

Its ability to withdraw from the European Union is based not just on political expediency but on a perception that its participation in the global market economy is sufficiently strong enough without the support of the European community. Greece cannot sustain itself as a lone wolf in the quite the same way, which is why Greece with its relatively low power and status versus most other EU nations remains beholden and subordinate to, as well as dependent on, dominant nation-states like Germany.

Within the free market system, labor becomes a tangible commodity. Human resources can be quantified as much as any other resource like oil or gold. The free market sometimes entails the theoretically free movement of goods and some services across geo-political boundaries, but prevents the truly free movement of people across those same boundaries. Human resources are fundamentally different from tangible resources. The global conflicts related to mass population migrations can be understood better via a closer scrutiny of divergent immigration policies and patterns.

Some countries have "brain drain" issues, where they send their best and brightest to wealthy and powerful nations. Remittances are insufficient to counterbalance the flow of top talent abroad. Mexico, India, and Jamaica are but a few of the countries that are unwittingly allowing themselves to be exploited by brain drain. In other cases, cheap and migrant labor facilitates the competitive global economy. Products produced as cheaply as possible will move faster in the global market, which is why it is difficult to compete with China for low-cost manufactured goods.

When low-cost labor moves around across international boundaries, it can result in humanitarian crises and social segregation that appears to be related to ethnicity but is much more related to economic class and status. As tempting as it is to point fingers at Islam and propose a "clash of civilizations" model as Huntington does, the clash of civilizations model only serves to divert attention from the root economic causes of global conflict.

Just as Nazi Germany can be partly explained by Germany's political and economic weakness in the wake of World War One, Islamic fundamentalism and its terrorist tactics can partly be explained by the gradual weakening of Muslim political and economic power during the slow demise of the Ottoman empire. Fox's research reveals the fallacies in Huntington's point of view, too. Huntington's perspective ignores all history prior to the Cold War, as if the intra-Muslim conflicts since the downfall of the Soviet Union emerged in a vacuum.

The Fox perspective far better encapsulates the historic trends of conflicts, which may seem ethnic in nature on the surface, but which are ultimately rooted in access to and control of tangible or intangible resources. Response 1: Kirsten The conflict in Myanmar is one example of how an ethnic minority bereft of power, status, or respect can become politically problematic, reverting to terrorist tactics out of desperation.

This is not an attempt to excuse or justify terrorist actions, just to point out that oppression does lead to "the anger of the damned," (Chua, 2014, p. 5). A similar situation has unfolded in Nigeria, in which Boko Haram emerged in the North due in large part to the oppression of a Muslim minority in the primarily Christian nation.

A global Muslim identity does link together Muslims from disparate backgrounds, offering a sense of "nationhood" and solidarity among Muslim people even when they share nothing else in common in terms of language or culture. This is why it is tempting to apply the "clash of civilizations" model, instead of looking deeper at the issues like oppression and disempowerment. The vestiges of colonialism continue to cause problems because of artificial or unresolved geo-political boundaries around the world.

Response 2: Gurjinder The concept of Wall Street and the global capitalist sector as being a "culture" unto itself is a fascinating and worthwhile take on global conflict. There does seem to be a homogenization of global corporate culture, evident in the ways white collar workers (the ones dubbed "expatriates" and not "migrant laborers").