Globalisation - Physical Flow - Political Influence - Effect of globalisation on the Vulnerable

Globalisation – a word that holds many different meanings for different groups, a word that is used constantly to define the ideas and values that a particular group holds and preaches. Although there are many types of flows, one that sparks to mind that provokes a continuous debate in Australia is the physical flow that globalisation creates – the movement of people across national boundaries. The heated political debate – the government a group that uses the theory of globalisation to create power and make a right to defend their decisions, about illegal immigrants is one many Australians are familiar with. The media has made this debate prominent, as the government continue to use political propaganda (through the use of vulnerable ‘boat people’) to gain support for their party.

Propoganda OR the Truth?

Under all the political squabbling, you can see the real effect that globalisation has on the movement of vulnerable people escaping the devastation in their own country. It is worthy to note that the political debate is centred only on boat people, not the large amount of individuals that come in via aeroplane, illegal or legal – they still inhabit our land just like the boat people are wishing to do.

The centre around boat people is a political struggle for power; globalisation has created this movement, and boat people are a perfect example that globalisation cannot have a fixed meaning because some people win and some people lose. In this context constant media coverage has allowed politicians to exhaust this method by promoting their policies. Without the media coverage policies would be essentially useless in the power struggle without the plastering and preaching that politicians do so repetitively.

As Peter van Onselen puts it (in the Australian):

‘…the political debate is centred on boatpeople, partly because it plays into people’s (inaccurate) fears about hordes of arrivals from underdeveloped countries who threaten our way of life, and partly because opinion polls continue to show that most Australians oppose illegal immigration. (Evers, 2010, p.1)

Globalisation and the Media: trying to gain political support through mediatising  vulnerable lives being condescended by globalisation.

Olsen V.P in Evers, C 2010, Boat People, Kurungabaa-a journal of literature, history and ideas from the sea, retrieved 17 July 2012, http://kurungabaa.net/2010/04/05/boat-people/.