Globalisation: the dream vs the reality

Those of you in the West who are feeling besieged by the latest wave of immigration would do well to consider the following: people who choose to abanon the joy of every day contact with their immediate and extended families so as to live in foreign lands and take work they would not deign to do in their homelands do not do so lightly. We in the West do not know, because we are not told, how the youth in poor African cities are being seduced by global advertising to shed their native dress in favour of blue jeans, and retune their ears from traditional hi-life music to the drum and bass of Hip Hop and Brit Pop.

The sheer pressures heaped upon the poorer nations to modernise are incalculable – the techniques deployed, relentless. And when these brainwashed townies return to their villages they carry the contaminating gadgets and gizmos with them. In no time at all their contemporaries in the village have caught the Westernisation bug. The peace of mind and contentment that they once enjoyed is disturbed. Dick Whittington-like, their sole aim in life is to go to London or Paris to see with their own eyes the streets that are paved with gold.

Even now the British Council is busy across Africa, training...

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