THE CULTURAL CHALLENGE IS FACING THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

Ziad M. Rabie¹

¹Professor of International Law, Faculty of Law, Jerash University, Jordan

Keywords:Organization Culture Nation Trade Economic.

ARTICLE HISTORY: Received: 23 January 2018, Revised:13 February 2018, Accepted:16 February 2018, Published:21 February 2018.

Contribution/ Originality:The World Trade Organization (WTO) imposes American culture on the world. The study sought to clarify the role of local cultures in confronting the WTO in general and globalization in particular. The study is based on real research, the first study, show the dangers of globalization on the national identity of any country.

1. INTRODUCTION

Every religious, economic or social system has a distinctive culture that is in harmony with it. The economic system and international trade affect the behavior of human societies directly.

WTO works to unify world trade. Although the principles and objectives of the (WTO) are purely economic, this factor is based on several considerations that require adaptation. Therefore, the economic factor is followed by many factors and the forefront of imposing a certain culture on the peoples of the world. The unification of the international economy requires the unification of many other factors addressed to it, including economic factors.

The (WTO) integrates the economic factor with other political, cultural and social factors in the United States of America and in European countries. While it works for other societies, especially the Arab ones, to further disintegration and fragmentation among these factors. The effects of economic relations imposed by the WTO in Arab society in particular are not monolithic but contradictory.

It has become a blending of culture and trade. It has made culture a commercial commodity that can be exchanged and called post-written culture, as it moves from oral to audiovisual culture without passing through written culture.

In this paper I will discuss topics: The special culture of each society, Justifications for imposing the culture of world trade on other countries, Means of influence of the World Trade Organization on culture,           The relationship between culture and economy, The impact of the (WTO) goals on Western culture, The (WTO) has influenced Arab culture.

First- A Brief Description of the World Trade Organization (TWO)

The World Trade Organization is an International organization, it is the second largest international organization after the United Nations. This organization was established on 1994, in the Morocco conference, signed by 123 nations, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The WTO is an intergovernmental organization that regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Morocco convention, it is the largest international economic organization in the world. The WTO deals with regulation of trade in goods, services and intellectual property between participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO convention, which are signed by representatives of member governments9–10 ratified by their parliaments. Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994) (Malanczuk, 1999).

The (WTO) is working to achieve many goals, including:

Assistance of developing, least-developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation and training.

Oversees the implementation, administration and operation of the covered agreements.(42)and (43).

Duty to review and propagate the national trade policies . Ensure the coherence and transparency of trade policies through surveillance in global economic policy-making

• Oversees the implementation, administration and operation of the covered agreements.(42)and  (43).

F-  Facilitate the implementation, administration and operation and further the objectives of this Agreement and of the Multilateral Trade Agreements, and shall also provide the frame work for the implementation, administration and operation of the multilateral Trade Agreements .

G- Provide the forum for negotiations among its members concerning their multilateral trade relations in matters dealt with under the Agreement in the Annexes to this Agreement .

H- Administer the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes .
The WTO monitors the economies of countries.

• Administer Trade Policy Review Mechanism .

J-   Cooperate, as appropriate, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and its affiliated agencies1 .

Although the WTO's consensus governance model provides law-based initial bargaining, trading rounds close through power-based bargaining favoring Europe and the U.S., and may not lead to Pareto improvement (Steinberg, 2002).

The WTO's dispute-settlement system "is the result of the evolution of rules, procedures and practices developed over almost half a century under the GATT 1947. In 1994, the WTO members agreed on the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) annexed to the "Final Act" signed in Marrakesh in 1994. Dispute settlement is regarded by the WTO as the central pillar of the multilateral trading system, and as a "unique contribution to the stability of the global economy". WTO members have agreed that, if they believe fellow-members are violating trade rules, they will use the multilateral system of settling disputes instead of taking action unilaterally2 .

The WTO has 164 members and 22 observer governments3 . WTO members do not have to be fully independent states; they need only be a customs territory with full autonomy in the conduct of their external commercial relations. Thus Hong Kong has been a member since 1995 (as "Hong Kong, China" since 1997) predating the People's Republic of China, which joined in 2001 after 15 years of negotiations4 .

The (WTO) manages global trade freedom and freedom of movement of capital and people.

The Special Culture of Each Society

Culture is defined as the homogeneous complex of memories, perceptions, values, symbols, expressions, creations, and aspirations that a human group maintains in its internal identity. In other words, culture is the authentic gateway to the historical privacy of a nation, and its view of the universe, life, death, What works and what should not be hoped is that the culture of globalization infiltrates two paths, one through conscious awareness of the infiltration process, which reaches to the point of deliberate adoption of Western culture patterns of food, clothing, terminology and language, and the other through unconscious perceptions. Its comprehensive presence in various social groups and in various forms of reception, adoption and absorption (Ali bin Shwail, 2001).

The cultural challenge represents a threat, danger, weakening or distortion of a particular cultural situation or system. Culture in the Arabic language means mastery, discipline, and speed of learning, but in sociology and civilization means a set of conditions and patterns of intellectual, applied, behavioral and life, which distinguish an individual or a group or a nation in a particular temporal period and location. "Cultural challenges" means a set of intellectual, practical, behavioral and life situations and patterns that threaten their counterparts in the nation5 .

The crisis that afflicts many of the developed and developing societies in the world is the weakness of its ability to build a cultural bridge that facilitates and facilitates communication, interaction and social cohesion between cultural specificities and global human culture. This is most evident in the crisis of education and socialization of the human being, a citizen in a community.

The building of this cultural bridge has undoubtedly become a vital necessity for human and human civilization. At the beginning of the twenty-first century there is no need for a culture, a society or a human being, even if it is to live isolated and self-reliant on considerations of the advancement of technology, communication and information, and considerations of international cooperation. The same as for the advancement of technology, communication and information, considerations of international cooperation, raising the standard of living and improving the quality of life (Ali, 2007).

Many irrational tendencies aim at keeping the status of dependence on the West as it is and disrupting the role of the critical mind as a necessity to contemplate the theory of globalization and its stored slogans such as civilizational dialogue, the universality of the Western mind and the end of argument and conflict. Here, an alternative cultural identity is acquired in order to overcome many of the psychological and cognitive constraints that the neo-liberal philosophy has invested in the name of universality, openness and co-existence (Khamis, 2000).

Every religious, economic or social system has a culture that is in harmony with it. The economic system and international trade affect the behavior of human societies directly.

Third-Justifications for Imposing the Culture of World Trade on Other Countries

Although the principles and objectives of the (WTO) are purely economic, this factor is based on several considerations that require adaptation. Therefore, the economic factor is followed by many factors and the forefront of imposing a certain culture on the peoples of the world. The unification of the international economy requires the unification of many other factors addressed to it, including economic factors. Many WTO-supported researchers have put forward many grounds for imposing a certain culture on the peoples of the world under the title of uniting cultures. One of the justifications for imposing the globalized culture on the Arab world is the following:

• Freedom of world cultural trade is the process of spreading American culture to the world. Some American writers are trying to suggest that there are negative factors in cultures for other countries, leading to American culture dominating these cultures. As an elite culture or a culture of restricted cultures, are religiously oriented cultures that use a language that is understood only by a few elite or clergy and therefore does not meet the needs of the contemporary human being sought in the exotic or invasive cultures of their society. American culture comes as a culture of no capacity and influence, as in the freedom of global economic trade, which has been able to break down geographical barriers between human societies. And because of the development of technology, which helped spread them6 .
• The proponents of global trade freedom believe that the causes of international disputes between Countries and civil wars are primarily due to religious, economic, cultural, national and ethnic causes. The difference of people in these matters has been and continues to be behind the disasters that have afflicted mankind. Adherence to religion was behind the Indo-Pak war between Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the problem of Kosovo, the civil war in Lebanon, Sudan, Algeria and the problem of the Copts in Egypt. The adherence to nationalism was behind the war between Arabs and Jews and the war between Iraq and Iran and the civil war in Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan and the problem of Tibet in China. The best example of human coexistence among the various human groups is American society. The American society consists of several nationalities, religions, races and different economic levels. That everyone lives within a single state. It is possible to apply American culture to the peoples of the world to eliminate the contradictions between human groupings and governance in the national context.
• From this logic, the case of the generalization of American culture to the peoples of the world limits conflicts between peoples or groups by eliminating cultures based on religion, nationalism, ethnicity and economic contradictions.
• The United States of America launched a war against Islamic organizations throughout the world and Palestinian national organizations.
• Despite the agreement of many countries to work under the WTO, many countries reject this principle and believe that it is a dissolution of their national and historical identity. These include France and China7 .
• It is certain that this trend imposed by the United States of America in the unification of cultures is directed mainly against the Arab nation, it is the most nations that adhere to the religious and national culture and are part of the Arab personality.
• The (WTO) integrates the economic factor with other political, cultural and social factors in the United States of America and in European countries. While it works for other societies, especially the Arab ones, to further disintegration and fragmentation among these factors. The effects of economic relations imposed by the WTO in Arab society in particular are not monolithic but contradictory (Ghassan, 2002).
• The United States of America is working to form political elites in the Arab world in such a way as to create closer ties to the Arab economy and politics in the United States. To reshape the elites, an alternative political culture based on glorifying the values ​​of market economy, political freedom and civil society must be disseminated. After the transformation in Iran, the United States realized that closed political elites would lead to political turmoil in the long run, especially with the expansion of the educational base and the growing technocrats in contemporary Arab society. The new elites sought to participate in political life, Western university graduates. The number of Arab students in American universities during the academic year 1997/1998 was 30962 students. In order not to surprise as is happening in the Arab world, Africa or Latin America, it is necessary to leak certain elites with a certain orientation close to the American political values ​​to the Arab body in the Arab region in a way that prevents congestion on the one hand and adopts the American project on the other. By circulating this culture through US-funded study centers by transforming the project from the level of adoption of the emerging elite into social bases within society that support the elite in the voting process. The United States of America is implementing this policy through several institutions established for this purpose (Among, 2001).
• The WTO considers culture as a means of applying its principles and objectives. It has become a blending of culture and trade. It has made culture a commercial commodity that can be exchanged and called post-written culture, as it moves from oral to audiovisual culture without passing through written culture. In order to instill American culture in the minds of Arab youth, the United States of America has opened its universities to receive Arab students in colleges related to cultures8 .
• The globalized market rejects the existence of local cultural and psychological characteristics, and thus globalization requires the birth of a new model for its post-cosmopolitan exchange, thus losing its tangible nature within the traditional markets (national, regional and international) (Fatallah, 1996).
• It may be said that this trend can benefit countries in trade and affect each other. Arab countries do not have the goods and services they can export their culture abroad, as long as they do not have the means to compete internationally. It is thus the first victim of this process.
• In view of the industrial and commercial resources of the developed countries, such as satellite channels, the Internet and international communications of all kinds, they can direct the public to prefer their goods to national goods and thus develop the contract of foreign goods, which are rooted in developing countries, especially the Arab countries. Thus, the culture adopted by the World Trade Organization is based on the culture of foreign consumption. This harms the trade of the Arab countries and makes its audience the victim of foreign consumer propaganda.
• The ideas raised by the WTO supporters are glamorous ideas and are popular and acceptable to everyone. When human rights, democracy, modern culture and religious, national or ethnic intolerance are put forward, such ideas seem to be very acceptable to those who poison them, and human beings have to accept the quality of goods, services and innovations. This indicates that this particular situation or the new pattern of human relations imposes on others, this style is marketed and refined to the whole world. If we are convinced, the image of the new relations offered by the West is glamorous in order to attract the tastes of the Arab consumer9
• The World Trade Organization is concerned not only with the movement of goods and the opening of international markets to goods but also services and labor mobility. The movement of goods into world markets requires the transfer of representatives of international companies to the countries where their goods are located. This means that the borders must be opened for the free movement of persons. This phenomenon is the result of what we call the invasion of Western traditions and customs material, including the moral degeneration and transfer of their organs to the Arab community and influence in the customs and traditions of religion and nationalism.

Fourth-Means of Influence of the World Trade Organization on Culture

Some writers see that the impact of globalization on national culture is based on the following:

• The use of the global market as a tool for breaching the balance of nation-countries in their social protection systems and programs;
• Taking the market and the competition in which there is room for "selection", in the Darwinian sense of the word, that is, according to Darwin's theory of "species selection and survival of the fittest." This means that Countries, nations and peoples that are unable to "compete" will be doomed; they must be extinct;
• Given all the importance and priority of the media to bring about the required changes at the local and global levels, since geopolitics, or politics viewed from the perspective of geography and thus global hegemony, today means controlling the " Cybernetics: The limits of the political-economic sphere of advanced electronic communication (Mohammed, 2008).

The talk about cultural identity is only a desire to understand the self-obstacles that ruled the human mind and the failures of the intellectual and the vibrations of many political movements. It can be said that the scientific-philosophical thinking in the issue of cultural identity remains confused at the very beginning by accommodating the experience of Western modernity in the scope of criticism of the freedom of world trade in favor of building a cultural project that devotes a cultural, critical and rational cultural identity to the positives of cosmic transformations away from narrow private logic. From origin, originality and identity without the slightest historical approach to the problem of globalization, or a scientific understanding of the status of subordinate peoples seeking a cultural identity in the face of self-destruction as a result of self-obstacles that ruled their social and historical existence and the outcome of an almost totalitarian domination of a Western capitalist Based on differentiation and difference (Khamis, 2000). 

Fifth-The Relationship between Culture and Economy

Although the technical dimension of communications and development in armaments and the economic dimension of freedom of movement of capital, goods and raw materials between all regions that have entered the global system or the melting pot of global economic trade. Although the concept of free trade has been linked to the economic dimension, the concepts of social and political values ​​have a clear and important share in the concept of universality. They have supported the remarkable developments in the enormous level of media pumping through which some countries with media presence have been able to influence the social and political values ​​of societies around the world. Political values ​​with a local local dimension became widespread and the global presence became even more universal. This unilateral media dimension, emanating from a western dimension to the other world, was one of the most important factors for implementing political values. The West is due to the depth of Western political philosophy that swept the world through the colonial movement and the subsequent movement of influence, with the absence of many countries and societies around the world for political systems and political structures that could challenge the Western political system in terms of organization at the state level Its internal environment at the level of political participation and the political movement between the top of the political pyramid and its popular base and the mutual influence between them (Saleh, 2013).

The success of Western countries at the level of external dimension or the management of foreign policy has been a clear success and impact represented in the successive successes and continued through the decades of years at the level of the international political scene. All this tremendous momentum of Western civilization, at the political, media and media levels, has clearly mocked the great and decisive battle for the dissemination of Western social and cultural values through the political, economic and media dimensions. All these dimensions were prepared through the concept of free world trade to the battle of social and ideological change Around the world so that Western values become the index of international values and therefore Western success can claim to be a self-dedicated, renewable and dynamic success not within the system of Western countries, but even within the system of other countries.

Indeed, the indicators of cultural change of the other world towards Western values ​​are clear and multifaceted in all parts of the world and have been concentrated in large cities around the world. The difference between cities and countryside has become vast and wide. Thus, the concept of migration to cities in Third World countries has been indirectly linked to the concept of migration from traditional to Western or from heritage to Westernization. What distinguishes the freedom of modern world trade is that it is no longer present in the big cities, but is preparing today as it moves clearly and forcefully towards the heritage and traditional repository, the Third World countryside, which provided cities with cultural balance. That is, the freedom of Western world trade today is directed towards the formerly closed rural world through the World Wide Web, through international satellite broadcasting and through the vast modern communication. As a result of this shift in the concept of free world trade, the Third World countryside finds itself in the international confines and is no longer isolated within his farms and his traditional life and here is the place for change and influence10 .

All of the above is one face of the coin, but the meticulous explorer and the observer will look and discover that there is another dull face of the coin and another dimension of the concept of free world trade is the extent of the influence of third world countries on Western countries and how this effect can be monitored, measured and acknowledged.

Sixth-The Impact of the (WTO) Goals on Western Culture

The follower of the European community during the 1950s and the end of the 20th century will discover that the concept of freedom of world trade and development of Western societies and development tools themselves has extended to the Western world itself, and these Western societies have not been removed from them. Many Western societies have melted in each other and are no longer there. A characteristic or characteristic of European countries or European society. There are even European values ​​that were born and derived from this European-European connection, although these new European values ​​fall within the context of the European philosophical context, both political and civil, unlike the world. The third, which is to turn even means that slough to a new ad valorem system11 .

Tensions caused by this uneven development have caused deadly contradictions, countless tremors, collapses and further disarray in the coexistence of human society and the growth of ethnic, racial and extremist tendencies. Indeed, countries that sponsor free trade have reversed this trend when they have closed their doors to immigration from a country dominated by poverty and war. These governments have sought to apply a selective policy of stealing minds and competencies to a culture that is the other weapon that free trade traders use to absorb The wealth of peoples because the dedication of cultural values ​​coming to the peoples of the world contributes to a large extent in the marketing of their products On the contrary, the marketing of economic products of their companies contributed.

The spread of the culture of consumption and fast food turns people into a herd that does not think and groans behind its belly and has another fashion and music theme. As one of them said, under the freedom of world trade we are meant to eat, dress and think as they think. The cultural openness has become synonymous with the globalization of sex and the spread of pornography without restrictions around the world through the networks of space and the Internet, and prostitution has become a globalized for its unlimited geographical spread after being limited and isolated (Murtada, 2007).

The example of the impact of the freedom of world trade on the Western world is more common in the United States where the American philosophy was based on social, cultural and political melting within the country of exile, the movement of the melting of immigrants was one of the most effective local American strategies and therefore the early immigrants were spending the trip Across the ocean in the ship and this trip is the last rope that links them with their previous lives and values ​​and traditions of the former and opens the immigrant all his heart and mind for his country and turn it into a US citizen at the level of values ​​and knowledge, Meh and nationality. Then the resistance to immigrants became greater, where the first generation retained its original values ​​and soon collapsed with the second generation born within the country of the Diaspora12 .

With the concept of freedom of world trade and communication today, the United States of America has begun to lose control of the movement of new immigrants, where new immigrants have been able to communicate with their traditional values through continuous flights with the country of origin, both in Asia and Africa, but studies have shown that immigrants with religious beliefs The most human populations are resistant to melting in Western societies because of their spiritual connection on the one hand and the influence of the spiritual side on the cohesion and renewal of values of these immigrants to the United States of America (Mustafa, 2014).

Some believe that the WTO does not affect national culture. Japan maintained its cultural identity while adapting to the world order and taking away from the West political and economic systems without any sense of inferiority or scratching of identity.

Seventh-the (WTO) Has Influenced Arab Culture

Indeed, this excessive fear of identity and privacy may reflect a lack of self-confidence. The Muslims did not advance or deny them the world, except when they believed that diversity and diversity are the year of God in the universe and that progress and success depend on the ability to deal with the different Serves self-interest. The logic of the World Trade Organization, like many manifestations of the phenomenon of free trade, is: "Enter, share, negotiate, hear our point of view, present your point of view, and so on." In the logic of this negotiation, nobody gets everything. For example, in the recent Uruguay Round, each country was given something in exchange for giving up something else. The United States succeeded in including trade in services and intellectual property on the agenda, The GATT framework through the phasing out of the special agreement that had governed this sector since 1962. It is the logic of "take and give."

The Arab community is keen to maintain a distinctive type of culture emanating from the Arab-Islamic heritage, and it is part of the national character to which it boasts. It is certain that the (WTO) carries certain economic concepts based on a culture of its own that is consistent with its aspirations. These concepts are contrary to the cultural values of Arab society.

The direct effects of the World Trade Organization on the cultural movement in the Arab world can be seen mainly in the form of a decrease in customs duties on IT-related products such as computers, operating programs, etc., especially if the Arab countries join the IT agreement The tariffs on these products, which have been committed to fifty five countries of the Organization represent more than 92% of the volume of international trade in the information technology sector.

With regard to the liberalization of services, the WTO agreements aimed at reducing the prices of computer services, the most important of which are Internet services, scientific research and development services, scientific and cultural symposiums and conferences. In the field of basic and value added communications, a telecommunications agreement was reached in 1997, Sixty member countries of the Organization, including all industrialized countries, aim to liberalize the telecommunications sector in full, which, combined with the tremendous development of production, distribution and broadcasting technology, will open up a wide space To the development of education at every stage and dissemination of awareness and education in all areas of life and different social groups (Abdullah, 2011).

The impact of the World Trade Organization on public culture is not only the Arab and Islamic world, but also all the peoples of the world, including developed countries such as Europe, Japan, Canada and all other countries.

2. CONCLUSION

Islam is a divine religion, contrary to the ideas of globalization. The World Trade Organization (WTO) abolishes the religious privacy of peoples and imposes on peoples a life based on materialism. Freedom of world cultural trade is the process of spreading American culture to the world. Some American writers are trying to suggest that there are negative factors in cultures for other countries, leading to American culture dominating these cultures. As an elite culture or a culture of restricted cultures, are religiously oriented cultures that use a language that is understood only by a few elite or clergy and therefore does not meet the needs of the contemporary human being sought in the exotic or invasive cultures of their society. 

American culture comes as a culture of no capacity and influence, as in the freedom of global economic trade, which has been able to break down geographical barriers between human societies. Because of the development of technology, which has helped to spread it;

Culture is a symbol of every people. Every people cherishes its history, customs, traditions, and dealing with the sons of society. The imposition of any culture by economic force, lead to the elimination of privacy, so the peoples to stick to their own culture. Special cultures based on morality and humanity, the abolition of these, and imposition of material culture leads to the destruction of human relations between members of the same society.

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