One of the most irrational and unfounded accusations thrown at feminists in the developing world is that 'Feminism' is a Western construct and that feminists in the developing world are stooges of the West.

How often have we heard the cry that Asian feminists are working hand-in-glove with their powerful Western patrons, or that they are undermining the moral fabric of their own societies? How often have we heard the claim that by demanding equal rights such women are, in fact, challenging and threatening the theological-ideological basis of their religions and cultures?

Yet more often than not these accusations are uttered by the very same defenders of Patriarchy and outdated traditional 'Asian values' that legitimise a systematic politics of dis-empowerment and marginalisation of the subaltern.

The same detractors tend to forget that the downside of their blanket accusations is the somewhat bizarre conclusion that Asians and other non-Europeans do not deserve equal rights and that equality is somehow essentially un-Asian! If that be the case, then what were the anti-colonial and anti-imperialism struggles for, if not to demand equality between nations and races?

The celebration of International Women's Day this week, however, has once again brought to the fore some disturbing realities, not least of which is the growing power differentials between the developed and the developing worlds.

While women in North America and Western Europe continue to struggle for equal rights, salaries and working conditions at home and at work; the women of countries like Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Arab world have much more to complain about: from the increasing levels of violence meted out upon their societies to the on-going exploitation of women by powerful multinational companies.

Timely reminder

It was for this reason that the demands made by feminists in France this week came as a timely reminder of the commonality of struggles that should unite women and men all over the world today: Feminism cannot and will not succeed, they contend, unless and until it links itself to the struggle against globalisation.

For it is the process of globalisation the deliberate and calculated advancement of corporate interests under the control of an oligarchy of (often male) patrons and their clients that has spawned many of the problems that we in the developing world face today, ranging from the exploitation of our human and natural resources to the traffic of arms, narcotics and human slaves for profit.

While Feminism's initial struggle was directed against the dehumanizing and divisive culture of Patriarchy (that deforms men as well as women, it should be added), a shift towards a critique of globalisation does not necessarily imply a departure from its original aims. For the fact remains that globalisation today is simply an extension of pre-existing patriarchal structures of economic, political, cultural and racial dominance in the first place: It is not a coincidence, for instance, that some of the most powerful multinationals in the world today are built on the foundations of the old trading-empires of the past.

And if empirical evidence is needed to bolster this claim, then just compare the conduct of American and European oil and gas companies in Africa or Halliburton in Iraq today with the conduct of the older imperial companies such as the Dutch East Indies Company, the East India Company or the Compagnie des Indes. Then, as now, Patriarchy is founded on economic power as well as the possession of the tools of violence and repression.

Bringing together the common struggles against Patriarchy and globalisation, however, is bound to complicate matters for activists worldwide. For while both Patriarchy and globalisation are structural phenomena and involve patterns, orders and hierarchies of power and violence, both have evolved to be more sophisticated, inclusive and decentralized. The common mistake of many anti-globalisation movements to target the symptoms, rather than the causes and structures, of globalisation (such as the attacks on American fast-food restaurants) comes to mind.

Likewise it would be wrong to conclude that women's rights have been won simply because a handful of women have been included in the overall dominant structure of Patriarchal power. (Here the elevation of the Condoleeza Rice to the Neo-Con cabinet of President Bush Junior comes to mind. Nobody is stupid enough to take Rice's promotion as an indicator that women in America have been emancipated in any real way, least of all the women of Iraq.)

For Feminist and labour activists in the developing South the picture is even more complicated: Imagine, if you will, what would happen if an anti-globalisation movement were to succeed in a small developing country that was previously seen as a source of cheap labour. The inflow of direct foreign investment (FDI) may have been the only thing that kept the economy of such a country afloat.

If feminists and workers activists in such a country manage to secure their objective of attaining equal rights and pay for women workers employed by foreign multinationals in that country, we can guess what would be the immediate result: The near-instantaneous outflow of foreign capital to another country where workers' and women's rights are less protected and where workers (more often than not women) are still regarded as chattel to be exploited at will.

Global struggle

Here then lies the dilemma of the Southern Feminist and labour activist: One the one hand we cannot and must not give up our struggle for emancipation, universal human dignity and equal rights for men and women at home and the workplace.

But on the other hand any success on our part will immediately be undermined by the precarious and ungovernable terrain of the global financial market that remains lawless. Nor are we able to fully control the impact and effects of predatory international economic agents and actors whose power lies beyond our control. What, then, is to be done?

The call of European Feminists for a global struggle against globalisation is laudable and has to be taken seriously. Today globalisation threatens to undermine the social cohesion of all societies, be it in the developed or developing world. Furthermore the zero-sum logic of global economics threatens to rob politics of any semblance of ethics or moral responsibility, allowing governments (particularly in the South) to abdicate their responsibility for their own populations.

But the struggle against globalisation and Patriarchy can only succeed when we all realize that the two problems are inter-connected and have to be addressed together by a global community that is cognizant of the realities of our times. The uplifting of the conditions for women in the developed world cannot be at the expense of women and men in the developing South.

DR FARISH A NOOR is presently Visiting Chair of Asian Studies at Sciences-Po Paris, France. He is the author of Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of the Malaysian Islamic Party PAS (MSRI, Kuala Lumpur, 2004) and The Other Malaysia: Writings on Malaysia's Subaltern History (Silverfish, 2002).