Translation, Ethics and Ideology in a Violent Globalizing World

Abstract

The topic of political violence and globalization inevitably invokes the events of 11 September 2001 in the United States, bombings in the United Kingdom and Spain, suicide bombings throught the Middle East, the US presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the supercharged military response by Israel to what are at times relatively minor instances of political violence by Palestinian civilians. We could add to this dismal litany violence associated with the world drug trade, violence associated with prisons and the detention of prisoners worldwide, ethnic slaughter and genocide, and cruelty promulgated by specific regimes that use arbitary violence against civilian populations to inspire terror so as to buttress their power, all of which have gained global attention because of contemporary media and their translation activities. As I write these words, it is probably fair to say that most people in the world who know and care about these violent acts and events also disapprove of them. This includes the majority of voters in the United States who have grown increasingly opposed to the involvement of the US in what are seen as civil wars and to acts of the US government that violate the US Constitution, including domestic spying and the torture of prisoners, as the results of the 2008 elections indicate.1 It is, of course, important to acknowledge that those aware of these world events do not in fact constitute the majority of the world’s population, despite the rhetoric about globalization, because so few people actually have the resources — whether material or psychic — to ake an interest in world events and to access essential information.