ARAB NEWS: At times I feel we’re almost being legislated out of existence by nanny governments under the pretext of keeping us safe. At the same time globalization and the information age has blurred our national identities, while satellite television insidiously moulds our cultural mores. What does this mean for individual freedom? How does this growing trend affect our identity?
There are those who believe we’ve never had it so good. I’m not one of them. As someone who grew up in London during the 1970s I know what freedom is all about. It was a time when individuals were encouraged to discover themselves and eccentricity far from being shunned was celebrated. It was an age of discovery.
Ordinary people began to travel and interact with different cultures. They discovered a colorful world made up of different ethnicities and nationalities clad in a multitude of garbs, imbued with their own traditions and proud of their unique music, cuisines and way of life. I reveled in those innate differences, which made life interesting and exciting.
But over the decades there’s been a shift. With the advent of globalization young people, in particular, now dress in the same way, carry the same mobile phones, I-Pods and Blackberries, watch the same movies, visit the same websites and often cherish similar aspirations whether they live in Dublin , Dubai , Delhi or Dallas. Will We End Up Bland and Boring? By Linda Heard
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
