Letter: Effects of globalization

This refers to an article titled “The dull and reassuring sameness of shopping malls”, (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 8, p. 1)

One of the side effects, and it is not a good side effect, of globalization is that the world is becoming too much the same. Indigenous cultures and traditions are getting wiped out by Westernization, urbanization and consumerism.

Capitalism does not promote equality but allows the few to trample on the many. Malls are “temples to materialism and money”. The poor do not go into them other than to serve the rich, working in shops and restaurants that pay them pathetic salaries that they can barely live on.

The poor will serve the rich with the cruel knowledge that they can never have what the rich are enjoying.

Indonesia has no planning. Its cities have been a mess for decades and they will only get worse. Allowing shopping mall development after shopping mall development to occur is doing nothing to improve cities and it is doing nothing to help the vast majority of the people.

Lance White
Bandung