The event I am speaking about is “Interdependence Day,” which is a brainchild of American political theorist Benjamin Barber. Barber, whom you might know from his international bestseller, “Jihad vs. McWorld,” is a liberal thinker who believes that America should follow a much more multilateral foreign policy and use a much softer power in the world. His 2004 book, “Fears' Empire,” is a strong case against the Bush administration and especially the neoconservatives, who believed in the magic of pre-emptive military power. Benjamin Barber stands right at the opposite side of the political spectrum and argues that everybody, including his fellow Americans, should understand that we live in an ever-globalizing world and no single power can manage to manage it.

No more Star Wars

In the opening panel of the five-day-long Interdependence Day Forum, which was joined by dozens of academics, activists and artists from all around the world, Barber emphasized the factualness of globalization. “"It doesn't matter whether you like it or not,"” he said, “"globalization is happening and it is irreversible.”" Many problems of the world now come in global, not local or national scopes. Diseases such as AIDS or the West Nile Virus… Global warming and other environmental dangers… Multi-national companies whose brands show up in four corners of the world… And the Internet, of course… All these phenomena are way beyond the powers of individual nations, including the strongest ones, to handle.

Terrorism is now similarly a global threat. Remember Ronald Regan's famous project, “Star Wars,” which was supposed to protect the US from enemy missiles. But in the 21st century, the attack on America came via not ballistic warheads, but 19 barehanded militants who used simple board cutters to hijack planes. Now terrorism is so tiny and volatile that conventional ideas of war are meaningless to deal with it. If you carve out al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, then it will just show up in another country. That's why “the war on terrorism” will never be won, unless it turns into a multi-lateral effort to not just pinpoint the terrorist groups, but also solve the conflicts and grievances that generate them.

“"We still look for national solutions to global problems,"” Barber warned, "“what we need is to find global solutions, together."” This is also dubbed as “"democratization of globalization,"” to which his “movement” is trying to contribute.

But is America, the biggest actor in the global scene, open to such an approach? According to Barber, there are two Americas, and one does, the other does not. “"Sarah Palin and Barack Obama represent these two different minds in the States,”" he argued, “"one that is inward, the other outward, looking.”" Palin of Alaska did not even have a passport until 2007 when she visited American troops stationed in Kuwait and Germany. Conversely Obama is a global man: A blend of Africa, Indonesia, Hawaii, and the cosmopolitan city of Chicago.

Coming soon to Turkey!

Another emphasis of the conference was the rise of cities, instead of the nation-states, in the global world. Now big cities are rising as truly cosmopolitan centers which are connected to each other better and deeper than the way they connect with their countrysides. A person living in Brussels has a lot in common with someone from London. And the populations of these cities are becoming more and more global rather than simply British or Belgian. Thus cities, rather than the nation states that they are enclaved in, form transnational networks that push the drive toward further globalization. "“It is not an accident that nationalists often despise cities,"” reminded Lord Shikoku Parekh of the British Parliament. “"Nationalist literature has always praised the untouched countryside, the volk, vis-à-vis the ‘soulless' metropolis.”"

It is also no accident that radical Islamists such as the Taliban or radical communists such as the Khmer Rouge similarly targeted the city culture and tried to replace it with “uncorrupted” rural ones. For the Taliban, the abhorred enemy could be as simple as a clean shave. For the Khmer Rouge, it was glasses and soft hands.

Of course few current nationalist movements are as insane as those extreme cases. Yet still, nationalists, including the Turkish ones, are basically forces that move against the tide. Of course standing against the tide might have not just its charm but also justification, if it is about clinging to eternal principles (such as justice or rights) in the face of a trend that goes against them. But, alas, the nation is not such a principle. It is, like globalization, a phase in human history that arose due to changes in science and philosophy. Clinging passionately to a phase, rather than a principle, is, at least according to me, not very meaningful.

Well, as you see, globalization is bringing up many interesting questions and challenges. And Turkey needs to get them right. Thus, perhaps it is a good chance that the next Interdependence Day will probably be held in Istanbul next year. Then more Turks can be exposed to the protocols of the learned elders of globalization, which is much less scandalous than they suspect.