Refugees were mentioned on this thread. There is a Canadian book out
which studies global refugee problems in this context: Anthony H.
Richmond, _Global Apartheid: Refugees, Racism, and the New World
Order_(Toronto: Oxford U P, 1994).
One book applies the apartheid concept to the U.S.: Douglas S. Massey,
_American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass_
(Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1993)
For lovers of deep history (500 years - 5000 years), there is a French
book which criticizes the current world system in terms of global
apartheid and traces the intellectual origins of Western claims for
global supremacy to the Roman empire -- Jean-Christophe Rufin, _L'empire
et les nouveaux barbares (France: Editions Jean-Claude Lattes, 1991).
I am not sure whether the concept of global apartheid adds a lot to
otherwise existing analyses of the world system. However, it has, in my
view, some *praxeological* value, in the sense that it may help to
imagine how one could possibly bring about some improvements. Thus one
could draw a parallel between Wagar's notion of a world party and the
(South African) ANC. Another way of looking at it could be that one needs
converging forces for change on both sides -- on the Western/Northern topdog
side and the non-Western underdog side. As a praxeological concept, global
apartheid points to the importance of non-economic factors that need
to be addressed in any strategy of change. But I am sure that is nothing
new for wsn'ers.
The question whether the last 25 years of globalization have begun to
break down global apartheid, is a difficult one. At a symposium where
related questions were discussed, the Third Worlders among the
participants seemed to agree that global apartheid has gotten worse for
the South during this period through new forms of domination, including IMF
conditionality etc. (see, special issue of _Alternatives_ (World Policy
Institute, New York), vol. 19, no. 2 (Spring 1994)).
On the other hand, there are also signs of a "Third Worldization" of the North.
Ali Mazrui expressed the view that the racism in "global apartheid" is
not just "structural", but very much "overt" as well (Ali Mazrui, "Global
Apartheid: Structural and Overt," _Alternatives_ 19, no. 2 (Spring 1994).
My own essays on the subject are: G.Kohler, "Global Apartheid,"
_Alternatives_ 4, no. 2 (October 1978), p. 263-275; and "The Three
Meanings of Global Apartheid: Empirical , Normative, Existential,"
_Alternatives_ 20 (1995), p. 403-413.
One interesting *empirical/analytic* issue arising from the concept of
global apartheid has to do with boundaries. If I understand this
correctly, the general presumption in world(-)system analysis is that
global capitalism is more or less ignoring national boundaries. In the
global apartheid view of the system, there is one type of boundary that
matters a great deal-- namely, the boundary separating the predominantly
white labour markets of the North from the multi-racial labour markets of
the South of the world. (See, Arjun Mukherji, "Economic Apartheid in the
New World Order," in Phyllis Bennis and M. Moushabeck, eds., _Altered
States: A Reader in the New World Order_(New York: Olive Branch Press, 1993).
Thanks for interesting comments on my previous post.
Regards,
Gernot Kohler
Sheridan College
Oakville, Ontario, Canada