What is the Global South?
The word “Global South” appears in every second headline today. Time magazine released an article titled “The West Is Losing the Global South Over Gaza” five days ago.
And another from a couple weeks ago in The Economist: “Xi Jinping wants to be loved by the global south.”
Everyone is talking about the “Global South,” which will most likely become the geopolitical term of the decade. So why is the word becoming so popular today?
The Origin
The phrase itself originates from an unexpected source. The United States was at war in Vietnam in the 1960s. It wasn’t America’s war to begin with, but they jumped in because they were concerned about the formation of a Communist rule in the region. Not just in Vietnam, but also in its neighbours.
Naturally, many Americans were dissatisfied with the war. Carl Oglesby, a writer and political activist, coined the phrase in 1969 in a column. He went on to say, “the North’s dominance over the global South . . . [has] converged . . . to produce an intolerable social order.” He was alluding to how certain countries ruled over others in order to establish a world order that suited them.
The North-South Divide
Take a look at a map and ask yourself, “Where are the richer countries with a higher standard of living?” And where are the poorer areas with greater rates of poverty?
Now attempt to draw a line to separate the countries into haves and have-nots. Most prosperous nations are likely to be found in the Northern Hemisphere, with the remainder in the Southern Hemisphere. That is the North-South division. And there’s a reason we advised you to draw a line.
Because that’s exactly what Willy Brandt, a former West German chancellor, accomplished in the 1980s. He used a similar statement in a report on foreign politics he was working on. And it became known as the Brandt Line.
One may argue that this was a sloppy classification because the comparatively impoverished Eastern European areas were in the north while nations such as Australia and New Zealand were in the south. However, the Brandt line was quite curvy in that regard.
Nonetheless, it was a simple classification. A basic rule of thumb that everybody can comprehend. While Oglesby may have created the term, it was Brandt’s Line that popularized it in geography textbooks.
For a long time, another term was used to characterize impoverished countries: the “Third World.” There was nothing unpleasant about the Third World at first. It was just a method of dividing the world into three parts. The First World consisted of the superpower United States and its Western allies. The Second World was dominated by the Soviet Union and its communist allies. And the Third World consisted of states that refused to support either of these two major blocs.
However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, many in the West began to use the Third World in a disparaging connotation. To suggest that this group of countries suffers from poverty, corrupt regimes, and a low standard of living.
Soon after, the phrase came to be regarded derogatory. As a result, a new phrase emerged: “developing countries.”
And at first, everyone was pleased with this word. People began to point out, however, that it constituted a hierarchy among countries. This claimed that one country was superior than another based on some arbitrary criterion.
As a result, we had to come up with a new phrase. In the 2010s, the phrase “Global South” began to resurface.
Conclusion: Who are the “Global South”?
It is a United Nations coalition of nations that today has 134 members, including India, China, and Nigeria. These are the so-called “developing” countries. And this organization has adopted the moniker “Global South.” To begin with, there’s the colonial hangover.
As a result, there is a shared sense of oppression.For example, 95% of Nigeria’s earnings is used to repay all of the country’s debt. Many other countries are also struggling.
Then there’s climate change, which is a more recent issue. As you can see, developed countries have completed their industrialization phase. To move ahead in the globe, they’ve produced all the toxic gasses they could.
Just look at the facts from 1751 to 2017: the US, EU, and UK accounted for 47% of CO2 emissions. Africa and South America together accounted for just 6%! Furthermore, while the epidemic decimated the world, wealthier nations were preoccupied with supplying booster doses for their residents, even as the WHO encouraged them to prioritize countries that didn’t even have access to the vaccines. It exacerbated the perception of inequity.
India has lobbied for the African Union to be included to the G20. They’re trying to get a seat at the table.
And they’ve fully adopted the ‘Global South’ language to represent this.
