In an attempt to make America less geocentric, which isn't a bad idea, my school and several others have implemented a global citizenship program where students learn about culture, religion, politics, history and other such issues of other countries and not just America. I am currently in one such global citizenship class called Intercultural Communication and want to share my criticism of this program based on my own experiences of living aboard.
First off, I’m not against learning about other people’s cultures or religions but sometimes geocentricism is a good thing, especially when you live in the greatest country in the world. Americans tend to know a lot about America and less about the world, well at least the ones who don’t travel. There are advantages to geocentricism, such as knowledge of one’s identity, which the global citizenship program misses entirely and being proud of where someone lives is not a bad thing. However, the global citizenship program gives students an unrealistic, politically correct view of the world which from my experience is not shared by other countries and this is the biggest disadvantage the program faces.
A good question to ask is this, do people in other countries really care if you are a supposed global citizen? The answer is no, they really don’t. Go up a typical German living in Germany and tell them that you’ve learned about how to be friendlier towards their culture and don’t be surprised if you get back a barrage of heartless sentiment on how idiotic you are. Another question is that are student around the globe taking courses on how to be less geocentric for you as an American? Well no, they’re not. I know for sure in the countries where I lived and visited most schools don’t offer Intercultural Communication classes and if they do I don’t think American culture is even mentioned. So why are we trying to learn about their cultures when they don’t give a flying crap about America?
The reality is that there is no such thing as a global citizen. There is no global passport and the country you were born in or have family who were born in is the country you are bonded to. It’s not pretty but it’s a reality we all must face.
If you go out into the world you will be discriminated for being of the country that you were born in. Most European people I knew thought Canada was a state within the US. While it’s true that there are very little differences between Canada and America, Canada is of course another country.
Many Europeans hold exactly the same stereotypes and discriminate other ethnic groups that are not their own. Whether it be the Russians in the Czech Republic, Hungarians in Slovakia, Albanians in France, or gypsy in pretty much every single European country, Europe is the most openly racist continent in the entire world. A fact that global citizenship can't get rid of nor does it address.
Learning how to impress a German with your knowledge of beer, sausages and Faust will do nothing but irritate them. Acting sensitive to the needs of Europeans is why many of them hate us so much. It’s because we are too politically correct and don’t want to step on toes. For example, the French, Germans and British love to debate people from North America and love it more when we can take a different side from their views. What they don’t like are the things I'm learning in this Intercultural Communication class. I suspect people from other continents don’t like our political correctness either.
Sadly, the only way a person can loose their idealistic belief in global citizenship is by being confronted and insulted by someone who doesn't care much of a global citizen you think you are.
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