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Global citizenship 1A03 Blog posts

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Rassemblement Nationale - Blog Post #2

Over the last couple decades, we have all seen a rise in globalisation, with companies and states interacting on a more international level. It has led to a general increase in GDP when compared to a century ago. However, with this increase, an anti-globalist movement has also begun to develop. Some political parties see the rise of globalisation as a sort of threat against their respective states. These parties are mostly far-right parties, such as the National Democratic Party of Germany and the Trump administration (Stack, 2016). The main focus of this blog is also one of such parties: Rassemblement Nationale, or the National Rally in English.

To begin with, I should explain how I came across this party and their ideals. I have been aware of the Rassemblement Nationale for a while now, mostly having learned of their existence while doing an exchange in France. I was clueless except from what my host family could translate for me, so I was unaware of all of their ideals until I began researching anti-globalist states.When I put in the National Rally, many articles surfaced. A large number of these articles were about the leader's goal of "defending France from globalisation" (Reuters staff, 2017).

The Rassemblement Nationale is a French far-right political party created in 1972, with anti-globalism being one of their core ideals. Their current leader Marine Le Pen. During the 2017 French Presidential elections, Le Pen had explained globalisation as "manufacturing by slaves for selling to the unemployed." (BBC, 2017). She placed a heavy emphasis on focusing on more local activities, stating that it would benefit the country more than globalisation could. Le Pen has made it clear that she is against economic globalisation, claiming that it is the reason behind "French decline." Her written campaign involved her plans of removing France from the EU, further showing that she was also anti-free trade ( Vinocur, 2017;BBC, 2017).

Her campaign also heavily features anti-immigration ideology, which is another concept learned in class (Stockdale, 2022). She brought up the terrorist attacks that occured during then, connecting them to the "French decline" a well. If elected, she had pledged to "immediately suspend all legal immigrantion" in a bid to fix France's large influx of foreigners (Chrisafis, 2017). This anti-immigration stance also aligns with the 'us vs them' mentality we learned in the lectures (Stockdale, 2022).

Marine Le Pen ultimately lost by a landslide to Emmanuel Macron. However, she has declared her candidacy for the 2022 French Presidential Elections. From what we have seen happen to the United States under the Trump administration, who happens to share similar views with the Rassemblement Nationale, I do wonder if France will see something similar happen to her if she wins.

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References

BBC. (2017, February 5). France election: Far-right's Le Pen rails against globalisation. BBC. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38872335

Chrisafis, A. (2017, April 24). Marine Le Pen rails against rampant globalisation after election success. The Guardian. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/24/marine-le-pen-rails-against-rampant-globalisation-after-election-success

Reuters staff. (2017, April 23). Le Pen says will defend France against globalization. Reuters. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-le-pen-idUSKBN17P0TW

Stack, L. (2016, November 14). Globalism: A Far-Right Conspiracy Theory Buoyed by Trump (Published 2016). The New York Times. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/globalism-right-trump.html

Stockdale, L., Dr. (2022). GLOBALZN 1A03 week 3.

Vinocur, N. (2017, February 5). Marine Le Pen makes globalization the enemy. POLITICO. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-globalization-campaign-launch-french-politics-news-lyon-islam/

Image from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/01/marine-le-pen-rebrands-front-national-in-push-for-support

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Genshin Impact - Blog post #1

Throughout the ages, globalisation has played a huge part in my life. Being of mixed descent, it has been present even before I was born. I grew up outside of  Japan - where my mother is from - but I still had access to many Japanese things. One of which was Nintendo games. They were a very significant part of my upbringing. Their games are very important to me. It was what I played with my brothers growing up, and it was what introduced me to the world of gaming. As I grew older, I began exploring and playing other games such as Fantage, PubG, Sims, Valorant and more. All of them had some form of system that allowed for players to interact with each other. During the pandemic, I began playing Genshin Impact at my friend's insistence. Needless to say, it quickly became my favourite game. In addition, the game has very close ties to globalisation.

Genshin Impact is an RPG game created by miHoYo, a Chinese game developing company. Although the game was made by a Chinese company, it is accessible internationally through four servers: America, Asia, Europe, and TW, HK, MO.  I mainly play on the American server but I have an account on the Asia server as well. Ther servers are not limited to an individual's location. This gives me the opportunity to play with both my friends in the Americas and Asia. I have chosen to write about the game because it is heavily influenced by globalisation.

The game has a co-op and friend system. The co-op system allows for players to enter each other's worlds and make friends or just play together. I have made some good friends and we join one another's world whenever we feel like it. There is also an in-game chat system which has preset emoticons. This comes in handy when there is an occasional language barrier as the emoticons still let us express things what we want to do or how we are feeling to each other.

Teyvat is the name of the world in Genshin and it is separated into seven different nations with each nation being home to the Archon of a specific element. The nations are inspired by real life societies. Currently, only three nations have been released: Mondstat, Liyue and Inazuma. Mondstat is based off of Germany. In addition to the German sounding name, it also has an overwhelming amount of European and Tudor styled buildings. They are famous for their alcohol, similar to their real world counterpart. I really enjoyed Mondstat as the buildings reminded me of the ones I saw while travelling around Germany. Liyue(璃月)  is based off of China and Inazuma(稲妻) is based off of Japan. Both names are rooted in the language of their real world counterparts. It felt nice wandering around Inazuma and laughing with some of my Japanese friends over NPC names that we share. I share a name with a shogunate soldier which I find hilarious as my name originates from a samurai clan.

Genshin Impact is related to globalisation in every aspect. From the way players from all around the world can easily play together and chat together to introducing a country's culture - even if it is the most basic parts of it - to an international audience. It shows how easy it is to connect with others and how simple it is to learn about other countries and places through a game.

(Photos are all screenshots)