active watchdogs against any kind of monopolies developing internally in the U.S.. That is, of course, what keeps American economy competitive and relatively lean and mean. In the small states it is very difficult to achieve that.
We all know a sort of Guatemala story. There are so many examples also in our region. I can think of small Pacific countries which are coping, for example, with Japanese or Taiwanese fishing interests, Malaysian logging interests, all kinds of quasi-monopolies are constantly in danger off being set up, because they have so much firepower economically in relation to the very small states. When a state opens up, it needs at the same time to create anti-monopoly regulations.
I don't care if there is really only one car l can buy because it gives me great pain and anxiety to try to choose between all these rival models of cars. But I care a lot about being able to read books and newspapers, ideas that I want to read, particularly unpopular ideas that the government and the large corporations might not approve, Australia is often critical of some of is neighbors in relation to the control of the press in Burma or Vietnam, Malaysia or Singapore. Indeed the press in Australia is robust in lots of ways, but it is dangerously concentrated in the hands of two cartels essentially, Murdoch's network and Kerry Packer's Network. Between them they control 70% of Australian media, and it's an extremely dangerous situation. It could get worse because of the pressures of these two cartels, both claiming they need more in order to be more efficient, more competitive, on politicians who are anxious to appear well in the media. Another example that comes to mind again from Australia is book shops. We have had rather inadequate book shops without monopoly. In that case it's rather the opposite problem. We do have regulations to prevent international franchises in book shops. Whenever I go to the U.S. I think I can do without McDonalds, or I can do without Pepsi Cola, but Borders and Barnes & Noble are just wonderful. These are magnificent franchises. We could use some internationalization of the economy, probably all could of the media and of the book shops, which are two areas that mean the most to me. But in both cases if any one franchise, multinational group had a large share of the market that would be extremely troubling.
Thirdly, there is a lot of fear of culture loss through globalization, There is a lot of reaction, a lot of fear expressed and I suppose I want to be optimistic on this point as indeed some other speakers have been. The most strident spokespeople against these dangers of global, American, Western or Hollywood hegemony tend to be not cultural leaders, but the political leaders of the nation states, the agencies which have been the most active destroyers of cultures, seeking to maintain a certain construction of national culture rather than the globalized picture. When one thinks about the way in which globalization in terms of great movements of people and ideas has been carried around the world, it becomes clear that many local cultures have actually been empowered and enabled to survive in admittedly modernized ways. Professor Yamazaki very appropriately reminded us that we all share a sort of modern culture or modernity. And we know that indigenous or ancient or primitive cultures cannot enter in the modern world without themselves being transformed by modernization.
Let me point to two examples. Firstly, the movement of indigenous peoples has been enormously strengthened by globalization. There is now very strong network of people which I encountered in New Zealand, in Hawaii and very strongly in Canada. It's very strong in the U.S. and it's extremely strong in Australia. In all these cases the claims being made by indigenous people are very uncomfortable for the nation states, which want to treat all their citizens the same. The demand of all these movements is not for equality, but to be treated differently; to treat indigenous culture as having a kind of priority, having an endangered quality which has to be protected and given particular rights. Now all these movements would have been almost inconceivable if they occurred only in one country, for in every case what made the difference was international pressure, the ability to appeal to the intentional audience, and the ability to compare notes and emulate the gains of indigenous people in other countries.
This has been an enormous benefit and even created a situation which is often uncomfortable for the nation states, producing a much more complex texture which indeed is endangering some of the presumptions of the nation states.
The other doubie-edged aspect of globalization is tourism.
Again I know it best from Indonesia, where I can think of a dozen cultures which without tourism would have had great difficulty surviving, given the enormous pressures on them of nationalism, mass national education, urbanization and religious modernization. But it is extraordinary the extent to which their cultures in modernized form. sometimes indeed in forms that we can make fun over as made for export but forms which create great pride on the part of many peoples around the archipelago, have been able to survive as a result of forces which are essentially part of this globalizing world.
