WHEN I was a teenager, the world was divided between the First World and Third World, terms first defined by the French anthropologist Alfred Sauvy in 1952. The First World was the affluent developed world, the industrialised nations of North America, Europe and Australia: stable and democratic, life held infinite satisfaction for its citizens.

On the other hand, the Third World, where I lived, was characterised as poor, illiterate, underdeveloped, violent and insecure. The Second World was made up of the Soviet Union and the countries aligned with it, but it was more familiarly known either as ‘the enemy’ or ‘those Communists’. We paid little attention to it even when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, bringing the Second World right to the doorstep of the Third.

We were told that the First/ Third World had more to do with economics than politics, but the two seemed inseparable when it came to the power the First World wielded over the Third. First World countries used a lot of influence and money to keep them away from the clutches of the Soviet Union. Building on the foundations that colonialism and imperialism had laid for them in the previous two centuries, the First World gained free access to the Third World’s economic markets, influence on their education systems and a cultural dominance that warped young people’s self-esteem and pride in their own identity.

The First World rewarded those Third World countries for their loyalty with generous foreign aid, favourable trade deals, and unending support for their governments, no matter how corrupt or undemocratic. Indeed, the First World coined the term ‘banana republic’ to describe some of these Third World countries, even as they propped up their autocrats and encouraged them to function as the polar opposite of Western liberalism for half a century.

Is the term ‘Global South’ obsolete?

By the 1990s, the world had benefited from 20 to 30 years of decolonial studies and Marxist economics, Edward Said’s powerful work on Orientalism and Gayatri Spivak’s on subalternity, the liberation theologies of South America and the anti-apartheid movement of South Africa. The term ‘Third World’ began to give way to the ‘Global South’, somewhat due to political correctness but mostly out of their own loathing for an appellation that symbolised dysfunction and underdevelopment.

The Global South is made up of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Yet some countries in it began to achieve economic industrialisation: India, China, Brazil. Today, the inclusion of very rich countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as tiny Costa Rica and prosperous Malaysia raises the question of whether the ‘Global South’ term is now stretched beyond usefulness, too racialised, or even simply obsolete?

Not so, according to political researchers Nour Dados and Raewyn Connell. In their eyes, “the use of the phrase Global South marks a shift from a central focus on development or cultural difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical relations of power”. Former colonies aligned as countries whose interests clashed with industrialised powers in the West and the Communist bloc, thus ignoring Cold War divisions of the ’50s and ’60s. Today, the Global South is more than just “a metaphor for underdevelopment”. Instead, it references “an entire history of colonialism, neoimperialism, and differential economic and social change through which large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy and access to resources are maintained”.

But as we transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world, political scientist John Ikenberry envisions a Global North, a Global South, and a Global East, led by China and Russia. The Global South, in this scenario, is more passive and lacks leadership, and both the Global North and Global East compete for its loyalty and cooperation.

Still, when South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide in Gaza, many Global South countries rallied behind the cause of ending the conflict in Gaza and getting Israel to face international law for its alleged war crimes. South Africa’s historic defeat of apartheid gave the accusers’ case moral as well as legal weight. Instead of just backing Palestine in places like the ICJ and the UN, the Global South was now taking direct action against Israel in those very forums.

This marks a powerful change in the way these countries align and negotiate global conflicts. In politics, sometimes language reflects these changes and sometimes it is a precursor or even an instigator of change. Like the movement of tectonic plates that creates earthquakes on the higher ends of the Richter scale, the deliberate use of the term ‘Global South’ will instigate a major shift towards a world where global justice must prevail.

The writer is an author. She has been recently appointed the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at AKUFAS.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2024