What is Just and what is right?

Recently I undertook a trip back to Romania, my home country to be reacquainted with my extended family. During my time there I was taken on an inner journey that really called into question a lot of my actions, goals and career path. Without thinking it at the time, retrospectively I believe I have become a lot more self-aware as a result of this course. In Romania I was lucky enough to have lovely family time, see many of the great sites, eat great food and have wonderful and memorable experiences.

Many of these experiences were slightly tarnished by the poverty and squalor. Scenes of “gypsy” children begging on the street in tattered clothing and dirty in appearance stuck with me, imprinted at the forefront of my mind. Identifying as Romanian by birth and Australian by right it was interesting to see how I related to empathetically to this situation. How could I be so happy, in a country when there are these problems right in front of me?

Similarly, it was intriguing to see how, as a global citizen I saw beyond my category, social class and race of people to understand that these children where the same as me. Surely they should have the same opportunities and benefits that I have. At the very minimum, surely they should have access to basic human needs, shelter, food, water and healthcare. In this instance, I believe I was not a tourist, nor a traveller but both, being able to see both the good and bad in the situation.

This allowed me to call into question my career direction and how I can use my career in Biomedical Engineering as a global citizen to give back to my community in Australia, Romania and Globally.

As a direct result of this experience I called into question the very relationship between globalisation and global citizenship. In particular, how our wrong doings in the past have shaped how we conduct our justice and human rights into the future. But more so, how globalisation may have benefited us through our past wrong doings, that will in turn mean that some “groups” of society have experienced negative events done on to them and therefore may have a completely different understanding of justice and human rights then what we do now. It is therefore this gap in what we consider humane and right versus what others consider correct that presents a large challenge for global citizens.

For this reason, it is for very good reason we have organisations such as the UN and the Global Human Rights Defence to promote the rights of everyone, separate of skin colour, social standing or wealth. By the same idea, it is interesting to examine the ways in which technology has shaped our collective ideas of human rights and social justice. The impact of technology on promoting awareness for global issues is nothing short of phenomenal. From the expressions of distaste of our own refugee policies to the kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian girls, technology has allowed a large network of global citizens to band together against any issue in real time. This has been a subtle yet fundamental approach to governments changing policy and organisations changing practices and so on. This is an effect we are only beginning to see the full effects of, surely this is something we will see this continue to trend as third world and poverty stricken countries acquire better access to technology and internet.

Therefore, to move forward with Globalisation and to produce stronger global citizens it is essential we develop a globally accepted set of human rights, morals and ethics to ensure we can collectively act as truly global and responsibly cosmopolitan. As such this begs me to ask the question, how do we as Global Citizens conduct justice? This is something that leaves me highly confused; do we conduct justice in a democratic, judge and jury based legal system in which we can be exposed to political bias and corruption. In addition, do we turn our backs completely on capital punishment? Or do we completely redirect our efforts for justice into methods for rehabilitation?

As a result, we still have many ongoing challenges in regard to social justice and human rights and there interplay with Globalisation and global citizenship. In the future, it will be interesting to see the direction we take as global citizens in mitigating the loss felt by many around the world through maximising education, technology and leveraging our governments as global entities.