In learning about global citizenship, and what is to define
and be considered a global citizenship I thought it important to assess how the
world is moving towards global citizenship. In doing so I have chosen to reflect on some
world issues, organisations, governments and global policy that may be helping
or hindering our movement towards a Global Future and provide some commentary and
context on these over my next few blog posts.
UNICEF defines global citizenship as the responsibility of
groups and individuals to stand against injustice. A global citizen also
recognises and respects people regardless of differences and most importantly
is aware of global issues and takes action on said issues. More so, my
understanding of Global Citizenship is extended with ambitions of a global
culture, a global economy and a global harmony that displays these values
consistently worldwide.
Given the fact that we are in a new year it is the perfect
time to reflect on 2014 and the issues and interactions that pushed us closer
towards this idea of cohesive global citizenship.
Global Issues:
Ebola: 2014 saw
the introduction and development of some key issues that forced the world to
call into question its consistent level of global ethics and act cohesively and
accordingly. One particular issue was the action against the Ebola virus. This
saw the world react and band together to send foreign doctors, invest foreign
aid and review medical practices in order to protect humanity. Whilst some
might criticise the delay it took to react to the issue the world did have a
relatively good response in isolating the issue. A global Ebola Response
Coalition was also founded by a group of organisation to collectively respond
to the outbreak. Similarly, a range of United Nations and several other
countries have also banded together showing a global ethical consistency on the
issue demonstrating the ability for many countries to put aside differences in
yield of a greater cause.
Animal Conservation: Animal conservation is always a large
topic, 2014 was no exception. Interestingly, I would like to mention how
technology is starting to play a bigger effort in how we can spread awareness of
global issues as global citizens. This year we saw Prince William collaborate
with United for Wildlife to release an Angry Birds game application for smart phone
and portable devices. The application of which is a take off a virally popular
game that will also allow players to learn of the problems facing our
endangered species around the world. The video below depicts Price William and
provides context on the cause.
Climate Change: Similarly,
climate change has had an ongoing debate and not a lot of real traction of the
last few years. It is important to note that while some countries have begun to
tackle this issue individually there have been no real headways for a global
response. This year saw one significant headway in the global effort for
climate change in Australia. The G20 saw a push for president Obama to
encourage countries to pledge global aid to the UN Green Climate Fund. Obama
spoke of the responsibility of all countries as citizens of the world to
contribute to this cause. This really resonated with me and raised the point
that strong leadership is needed to raise awareness, question our ethics and
produce actions of global citizens. The president’s address is shown below:
Airline tragedies: Unfortunately
many issues happen every day that lead to less than pleasant circumstances.
However, as with many of these terrible events some good tends to show itself.
This was particularly evident with the combined search effort of 26 countries
who came together in an attempt to find the missing aircraft. Our own leader, Prime
Minister Tony Abbott spoke of how we “owe it to the families of the loved ones”.
This helped to demonstrate our global responsibility to each other as global
citizens regardless of differences and regardless of not knowing each other. It
is these intrinsic level of ethics that allowed us to come together in such
times to response to such events.
In a similar way we witnessed the relationship between
global ethics and globalisation. In particular we observed a different way in
which globalisation can effect international trade as a result of the MH17
airline tragedy and the ongoing conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. Subsequent
to the tragedy we saw an unfolding of events that led to several countries taking
action against Russia in the form of trade sanctions. These events illustrated
the ways in which globalisation and becoming global citizens has shaped us and
the way in which we respond to global issues. It will be interesting to assess
the relationship between globalisation and effects of the restriction of trade.
Watch this space!
Terrorism – In addition,
Australia bore witness to an incredibly unfortunate event in late 2014 as the result
of an ‘acclaimed’ terrorist. It was the aftermath of this and the global
response on social media that was an incredible display of global citizenship.
Initiatives such as the #illridewithyou campaign that went viral was an
overwhelmingly intelligent way for global citizens to come together despite
differences, to show respect for values and ethics and to move forward. The
image below shows the effects of the campaign.
Similarly, images were shown around the world (and below) of
the memorial placed at martin place that depicted the fact that we did not need
to have a relationship with the people involved to empathetically feel sorrow.
This also showed that regardless of our differences we can provide action
against a larger cause.
In the next blog post I will provide some commentary and
facts on some global policies and government initiatives that are providing enormous
help for the global citizenship effort.
Sources:
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