UNMAPPING THE GLOBAL SOUTH or HOW TO FIND A GEOPOLITICAL IDENTITY
Dear Readers,
My travels this month have taken me to Dubai, Brussels, Madrid, and Paris. I was struck, like all of you, by the violent clashes on the rise in universities and capitals all over the world.
I travelled to the Middle East’s more touristic coast, where brandishing the Global South flag was always the priority, aligning them with the rest of the unaligned world, while everybody in Europe is waiting for the EU Parliamentary election to usher in the far right and drenched Sunak, firmly outside Europe, called for elections on the Independence Day of his favourite country: the US. We need to better understand the Global South. We need to really factor in that our old western world is looked at not with desire and awe but as a decadent society. Remember Rumsfeld’s derogatory term ‘Old Europe’? Some epigones might now call us the ‘Old West’.
The film that inspired us... Slumdog Millionaire*
My conclusion is: identity no longer has geographic links. We can all feel Jewish or Palestinian or Ukrainian or Russian, whether in Mesopotamia or in Aguilar de Campóo (where yours truly grew up... go and figure out how I survived). The point is, do you feel the polarisation and do you feel it enough. If not, we shall send you a few indiscriminate YouTube or TikTok clips and you shall be convinced that you finally belong. Identity is ever more complex and the main challenge in the upcoming key elections. This is actually the year of the polyelections. So, for whom do you vote when you are protectionist but are not defined solely by geography.
“A few hours ago, you were giving chai for the phone walahs. And now you're richer than they will ever be. What a player!”
What if we start with ...
Counterintuitively, the term 'Global South' is not really geographic Many countries counted in are in the northern hemisphere, such as India, China and all those in the northern half of Africa. Australia and New Zealand, despite being in the southern hemisphere are not part of the Global South.
The term Global South appears to have been first used in 1969 by political activist Carl Oglesby. Writing in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal, Oglesby argued that the war in Vietnam was the culmination of a history of northern “dominance over the global south.”
But it was only after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union – which marked the end of the so-called “Second World” – that the term gained momentum.
Until then, the more common term for developing nations – i.e., countries that had yet to industrialize fully – was “Third World”.
That term was coined by Alfred Sauvy in 1952, analogous to France’s historical three estates: nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie. The term “First World” referred to the advanced capitalist nations; the “Second World,” to the socialist nations led by the Soviet Union; and the “Third World,” to developing nations, many of which still under the colonial yoke at the time, later to be distinguished from the “Fourth Word”, i.e., developing countries with no natural resources of their own.
In recent years, the idea that the global political and economic order divides the world into two unequal factions has returned to the global stage. In December 2022, the UN General Assembly once again adopted a resolution entitled “Towards a New International Economic Order,” calling for a revival of the NIEO of the 1970s. The vote split for and against the resolution mirrored the so-called Brandt Line, put forward by an independent commission chaired by former German Chancelor Willy Brandt and dividing the Global North and South. The UN vote almost exactly replicated this divide, with the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, and Europe voting against, while the rest of the world voted in favour except for Turkey, abstaining.
Consider the BRICS group, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa until 2024 when it welcomed four new members (namely, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates) and was dubbed BRICS+.
You don't? So you take the ten million and walk?
Jamal: No. I'll play.
Meanwhile in Brussels...
The imminent EU Election is getting the worst out of the Brussels bubble. Everybody is out to get at Líder Máximo Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission President who, with the experience of a mother of 7 and a medical degree, steered us through COVID, Ukraine (well, not quite yet), and yet another financial turmoil.
As June 9th is gets closer we are exposed to a rather dirty background noise of accusations from EU Commissioners challenging agreements that they themselves voted for in the College of Commissioners ... I do not know if the attacks would have been so nasty had Ursula been a [gentle]man, but strikingly even Charles Michel, current President of the European Council, and master of the “sofagate”, seems to be particularly busy trashing her.
What is likely to be the aftermath of June 9th vote? If we are to believe the polls, the right is winning, the extreme right getting there and the liberals disappearing while the socialists are surviving. One thing will stay the same though: the European Parliament Polyworld will be a target for comments of disregard by the leaders of the Global South.
Prem Kumar: It's getting hot in here.
Jamal: Are you nervous?
Prem Kumar: What? Am I nervous? It's you who's in the hot seat, my friend!
What’s up in Paris?
After a trip to the home of Macron’s grandmother in some remote mountain village, Xi Jinping decided not to agree with anything Macron wanted him to do to restore world order. Not to moderate his support to Russia’s war against Ukraine nor to stop dumping electric vehicles on the EU Single Market. But sure thing, there had to be a resounding success for the former Napoleonic empire, so the leader of the Global South agreed to remove antidumping duties on Cognac... that’s close to Sedan, where France suffered its last military defeat in Europe, but hey... there is always the possibility to continue ignoring the Global South or the fact that it is actually running far ahead of us.
...
My country of birth: Spain
On a moment of suspense only previously seen in the famous TV series “The Apprentice”, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez decided to take leave for 5 days because some judge decided to ignore the Supreme Court’s criteria for opening a criminal investigation and to formally investigate Sánchez’s wife for alleged corruption. She is after all a fund raiser... (no, she does not chair a foundation) and I reckon that here it was more the raising than the funds that upset Spain right and far right. Such a recess had only happened once in Europe, when Belgium’s king Baudouin abdicated for 2 days to allow the abortion law to pass parliament without carrying his mandatory signature. At least it was a question of faith...
When you think that in 2024 a statesman can go missing for 5 days you wonder whether the discipline of the Global South is not more interesting. There, when you are absent it is for good (the Chinese Communist Party congress that enthroned Xi Jinping featured a brilliant moment of removal forever from the public scene, featuring former president Hu Jintao).
And finally, basics on the Global South or what I learnt in Dubai
Often what unites the Global South is a critique of what its members see as Western hegemony.
Each of the Middle East countries has defined a clear role for itself, and the royal families respect each other as rulers. One is the Switzerland of the Middle East, while another takes the stately leader role. Each of them has developed a cultural leadership, and in Abu Dabhi one can see the most relevant architectural examples of our times and the best-curated museums in the world. They are all developing fast track trade agreements with countries around the world and do not bother much that the EU is not willing to go for it.
Being dependent on the North, and not equal to it, a great many of these countries are bound together by their colonial experience. The countries of the Global South — despite their unique positioning — are united in political solidarity out of a shared belief that their individual struggles are connected to the same core problem of global economic and political subordination.
The precise political causes the Global South pursues have shifted, but the core grievances remain the same.
Final question for twenty million rupees, and he's smiling. I guess you know the answer.
Jamal: Do you believe it, I don't!
Prem Kumar: You don't? So you take the ten million and walk?
Jamal: No. I'll play.
Basics on Business
The Global South’s heft in global affairs is growing as its share of global output has risen. It now accounts for roughly 40% of world GDP and around 85% of the world’s population. With this increased heft comes increased ambition. The most ambitious country of all is China, that aspires to lead the emerging world. Its economic power and ability to influence and coerce other emerging economies is now second only to that of America.
In my humble opinion
When listening to the leaders of the Middle East talking about the ease with which they close trade agreements with South American countries, China or Africa and the despondency they felt from the EU, one should remember that we, in the EU, cannot even conclude a trade agreement with South America started 20 years ago, or, worse, ratify one with Canada that is already concluded.
In the Middle East, and rightly so, they confront us Northerners with our double standards on the rule of law or the pitiful spectacle of the ongoing corruption cases against a likely candidate to the US presidency.
Let's be much more aware that we are no longer the envy of the world, and that the European way of life may not be everybody's ideal way of life. Business is suffering from the Silk Wall set up between us and them, and with an ailing economy, an aging population... I think there are more and more Slumdog millionaires coming up. So, let's make it good news for all of us and embrace it...
*Inspiration of the movie
The film as a point of departure to discuss present-day manifestations of neoliberal economies and the process of globalization. The clear division between Eastern and Western responses challenges the notion of the global or transnational response to a regional or national narrative.
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