Source:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/g/globalisation.aspIt is obvious to all who see this cartoon what the cartoonist is trying to convey. Smartly dressed in suits and ties, these big sized Americans are a representation of superiority compared to what seem like the people from the third world countries who appear to be all bag and bones, hardly able to afford any clothes. The caption suggests that the Americans view the lives of these people as less valuable and precious compared to theirs.
As we can deduce from the caption, “we all have to make sacrifices for the environment, and you’re ours!” the Americans are probably trying to get these third world country people to be their guinea pigs to carry out experiments on them to see if their hypothesis of a new potential medicine would succeed. The cartoon already depicts this. If their experimentation on these so called “insignificant” people do not succeed, then these people may suffer from certain complications or perhaps even die.
Some may argue that this cartoon is only showing an extreme situation but in reality, things like this do happen, even perhaps as this is being penned. For example, in 2001, Pfizer, a drug company in New York had caused the death of 11 African children as they were being used as human experiments to test the effectiveness of Trovan, a new meningitis drug. Some of the African children who survived are not spared from its aftereffects such as becoming death and mute altogether either.
This is a clear example of the destructive and preservative power that globalization has on us. Globalization has undoubtedly helped in the vast advancement in the medical field but it is also because of globalization that Pfizer was able to go all the way to Africa (where they must have thought that the Africans’ lives were less valuable) to source and make use of these African children which lead to some of their demise.
If not handled carefully, apart from speeding up the process of breaking through researches, globalization will also be the murderer of many humans whom were being subjected to failed experiments and this will continue to happen in the future. This is indeed the irony of globalization for without the former; there will be no latter.
