Wednesday 11 June 2008

We are the Citizens of the Global World

We are now coming to the era of the global citizenship. Legally we are still holding our country's passports, but the world becomes more global than ever. Music, arts, books, and news...all are the consumption of the global world.

Look at Seoul, OMNI was delivering news on the Beef Protest in Seoul, and their coverage had very high appreciation which made the cost of their bandwidth was rocketing up. And look, the readers were paying them for the news coverage.

Not only Korean people who are living abroad who care, there are also foreigners who used to live there, or those who have friends or family in Seoul who were curious about the situation. Two articles (look in here and here) from Claire George showed her attention to her former host country. Actually I was also thinking of donating the small cybercash I've got to contribute for OMNI's bandwidth. We are not living in our own islands, but we are joining together as a big family of human being.

Try to peek in this article and you'll find that demonstration, wherever it was, could end up in violence. The origin of demonstration like the one started by Gandhi would probably gained small attention. People power are more effective these days. Yet, these series of articles in Ohmynews International could help foreigners to understand what is happening there. The anger of the Korean people could be the same anger that is still hidden in Indonesia. I was sensing the danger of privatization years ago, when I realized that it could be selling the right of Indonesian people to private companies.

Weeks ago we were seeing the anger on the street, beaten demonstrans and beaten police officer after the increase of BBM price (oil price). Then another anger in violence was shown in the anniversary of Pancasila. Violence towards another people for accepting another group of believers. I'm not an expert of religions so I can't really aired my opinion (especially because I'm not Islam...so I don't know exactly how to react according to the rules in that religion). As a Catholic I don't really care about other sects in Christianity, I think religion is a private matter. Yet, as a citizen we do need government's protection to provide safety and stability in the country to provide space to eradicate poverty and lack of education.

As the citizen of the global world we are also sharing the same concern and sometimes similar problems. So, are you going to live alone...or to join the world?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Koreans who demonstrated against allowing a certain country's beef back into their market were showing solidarity with people living in certain other countries who suffer under foreign occupation. The dividing line between protection and occupation is hard to see

Retty Hakim (a.k.a. Maria Margaretta Vivijanti) said...

The difference of a journalists and a citizen is sometimes lies in the feeling and knowledge on certain issue.

When I was in Seoul, I was more attracted to visit Biwon (and make another article of my journey) than digging more into the demonstration against FTA. A real news reporter would jump into such an occasion to find more news and pictures.