Sunday, February 27, 2011

Along the Libyan Coast, the World is Anything but Flat

In case you were wondering whether globalization had erased the division between the colonizer and the colonized, you can relax: the old order is still in place. Especially in moments of crisis, the platitudes about a borderless world fall away, and we can see clearly who counts and who doesn’t.

Benghazi, Libya — American and British citizens have been evacuating for days. The Chinese workers were on their way, and the Bosnians stood ready with their bags on the shore. But from the milky windows of stifling rooms in a makeshift camp, the migrant workers from other, poorer countries, stranded by war and, in some cases, forsaken by their employers, watched cruise ships — and salvation — depart.

Read on.

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