The Global South speaks
The global transition from neocolonialism to sovereign independence
In my last commentary, I discussed the Summit of the Group of 77 plus China, held in Havana on September 15-16, 2023. I reviewed the key concepts and proposals of the Declaration of Havana, approved by proclamation by the Summit and released by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs on September 16. In addition, I emphasized a theme that I had discerned during the two days of speeches by the heads of state, emerging particularly from the representatives of the poorest nations. Namely, the need for scientific and technological development as the foundation for economic development, attained through South-South cooperation; and attained by the peoples of the South by and for themselves, no longer expecting cooperation from the North. See “Havana: Capital of the Global South: Technological development of, by, and for the South,” September 20, 2023.
Today, I continue to review the discourses at the Summit, selecting some of the more notable leaders of the Global South.
Inaugural address, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel
In an address inaugurating the Summit, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel noted that the Group was initiated nearly 60 years ago by seventy-seven nations with the hope that together they would be able to confront and overcome their common difficulties. Today, the group consists of 134 nations, in which live 80% of the world population, and it has the immense responsibility of representing in the international arena the interests of the majority of the nations of the planet. The Summit, he noted, provides the opportunity for collective deliberations in a climate of solidarity and cooperation, seeking unity in defense of the interests of the world’s majority. We must be oriented to the attainment of concrete results, he observed, keeping in mind the words of Hugo Chávez, that “the presidents go from summit to summit, while the peoples go from abyss to abyss.”
The Cuban President declared that as long as the North shapes the world to its interests to the detriment of the rest, it is the responsibility of the South to change the rules of the game. For the last sixty years, diplomatic efforts to transform the unjust rules of international economic relations have been useless, but we today are more numerous and diverse than ever, Díaz-Canel noted, with consciousness that we are the primary victims of the present multidimensional crisis of the world. Unity and cooperation is the only valid road, not only for the South but for all of humanity.
Díaz-Canel observed that innovative science and technology play a transcendental role in the promotion of economic productivity; they are the pillars of human wellbeing and socioeconomic development. Today, we are experiencing the greatest scientific-technical revolution that humanity has known, changing the course of life and automatizing even the most elementary processes of human existence. Technological development has connected the world and has eliminated thousands of miles of distance with the speed of a click. It has accelerated the process of scientific investigation, giving the human species the capacity to improve conditions of life.
But these possibilities are not within the reach of all, the Cuban president declared. The creation and diffusion of technologies of advanced digital production are very weak in the majority of the economies of the South. Moreover, rather than using technological advances to contribute to overcoming injustices and threats to humanity, they tend to be converted into weapons to deepen the development gap and to protecting the system of exploitation that for centuries has fed the wealth of the old colonial powers.
Another part of the global reality is the tendency for inventions to be patented. Díaz-Canel noted that this practice increases the coffers of the great transnational companies in the most powerful countries, and it makes the remaining economies more fragile. The practice forces countries in development to introduce laws for the protection of their intellectual property, which creates obstacles to the dissemination of knowledge, and it constitutes a barrier to the role that science and technology ought to play in development.
We have the duty, the Cuban president declared, to change the rules, and we can only do it if we mobilize for united action. Our primary task ought to be the discrediting of the research paradigms that are limited by the cultural assumptions and perspectives of the North, thereby depriving the international scientific community of considerable intellectual capital. The premise for our nations ought to be the rescuing of confidence in the most dynamic element of our societies, namely, the creative activity of the human being. The unleashing of this capacity is the key for making real the promise of sustainable development through innovative science and technology.
In this vein, the Cuban president pointed out the merits of the Initiative for Global Development, put forth by the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping. It is, Díaz-Canel observed, an inclusive and coherent proposal on the need for a new just and equal international order, in which knowledge is among the high priorities of the international system.
Leading voices of the Global South
Li Xi arrived to the Summit of the G-77 in Havana as the special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping; he is a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Li recognized the efforts of Cuba in uniting the forces of the countries in development in order to confront global challenges, which include the intention of the USA to maintain unilateral hegemony.
Li observed that the emerging markets and countries in development are now responsible for nearly 80% of the world economic growth. The economic dynamism of countries in development is a consequence of South-South cooperation, which is playing an increasingly important role in the collective ascent of the countries in development, and it is promoting the stable growth of the world economy.
Li asserted that China, as the largest of the countries in development and as a natural member of the Global South, is disposed to work with Cuba and the other members of the Group of 77 to open a new chapter in South-South cooperation in the pursuit of greater solidarity and development. We are in a historic moment, he noted, in which South-South cooperation is increasing, and the countries in development, including China, are gaining more force. China remains committed to the construction of a system of innovative technology in order to increase South-South cooperation, to reduce underdevelopment, and to advance toward sustainable development.
Nicolas Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, declared that Cuba is the mother for the peoples of the South, the epicenter of resistance. Havana, therefore, is the best location for a summit of the nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Our peoples have to find our own road, he declared; we ought not accept the dictates of any power with colonialist intentions of domination. The twenty-first century, he maintained, will be the century of the South, the century of free peoples liberated from neocolonialism, if they continue to promote the practice of South-South cooperation with respect to knowledge, technology, health, agriculture and the production of food, the development of industry, and telecommunications.
Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, declared that we have been witnesses for sixty years of the attempts to overthrow socialism in Cuba, which has a totally just system. Thanks to the teachings of Fidel, the Cuban people have been capable of resisting amidst hard conditions. Cuba is a lighthouse establishing initiatives for the development of its own forces and showing that it is possible to continue the battle. The battle of Cuba is our battle, he declared. The Nicaraguan President reaffirmed his support for the G-77 plus China and its role in defense of the peoples of the South, which for much time have been victims of capitalist exploitation.
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, thanked Cuban President Díaz-Canel for the invitation to the Summit, which is making more visible the challenges that the peoples of the South confront. He reaffirmed commitment to a global agenda for the common future of the peoples of the South, centered in the principles of justice and equality, including those that have been deprived of their right to liberty, as is the case of the Palestinian people. The conditions of insufficient development in Palestine differ from the rest of the world, because they are based on racial segregation and occupation imposed by Israel, which adopts policies that suffocate the development of our country. “I ask myself, as we confront a global crisis and inflation that make difficult the obtaining of food and fuel, if it is not the hour to put an end to this historic injustice against the people of Palestine. The occupation ought to be put to an end.” The Palestinian head of state also declared that “we have confidence that the G-77 plus China will continue supporting us. We assure our partners in the Group that the Palestinian people is going to continue resisting and struggling for its rights.”
Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina, observed that we are living in a time of a change of epoch, that is, a transition from one epoch to another. The signs of the change of epoch include: the appearance of two enormous powers, China and India; the crisis in Europe and the war between Russia and Ukraine; among others. Yet the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund continue applying the same orthodox logic that brought the world to a state of crisis, characterized by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the distribution of poverty to millions of human beings in the world. We must bring this to an end once and for all. We must transform an international financial order that continues to operate under the same rules that were developed decades ago, which do not respond to the needs of the peoples of the South, and which, in addition, are unjust. We of the Global South have a powerful tool, in that we produce the food, energy, and lithium that the center of the world-economy needs. We therefore are the owners of our future. But we have to be capable of developing our own science and technology, leaving behind dependency on others. We need to be prepared to make use of technologies as sovereign nations exercising their right of self-determination.
Roosevelt Skerrit is President of the Commonwealth of Dominica and currently is Chair of Caricom (the Caribbean Community). He maintained that multilateral cooperation within the Group of 77 plus China is necessary to stimulate technological innovations and ensure a coherent economic development that is able to adjust to the effects of external crises and is able to provide for needs with respect to education, health, information, infrastructure, food, energy, and climate change. In addition, South-South cooperation strengthens confidence, mutual respect, and friendship among peoples as they work together for a world more equal, sustainable, and prosperous.
Rouhollah Dehghani Firouz Abadi, Vice-President of Science, Technology, and the Economy in the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasized that the solution to the challenges that the Global South confronts is the transition from an economy driven by manual labor and natural resources to an economy based in technology and innovation. For its part, Iran in the last two decades has promoted the growth of high-technology industries in an active manner, by means of incentives and policies, particularly a law that provides support for companies based in knowledge with a potential for transforming the productive capacity of the economy. In a similar way, the Global South has the innovative science and technology that can contribute to transformative solutions with respect to climate change, atmospheric contamination, the scarcity of water, energy insufficiencies, and traffic jams in large cities. We make real our own technological solutions by investing in joint projects of fruitful collaboration in science and technology, which will pave the road to a more prosperous future.
Xiomara Castro Sarmiento, President of Honduras, declared that it is an honor to attend a Summit in Cuba, a country that is the symbol of Latin American dignity, a country that has won a prominent place in history for its resistance against the genocidal blockade of the United States. Castro Sarmiento attended the conference as the head of state of Honduras and also in representation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the presidency of which Honduras will assume in January 2024. She observed that she is the first woman president of Honduras, who emerged from the streets, thanks to the support of a people in resistance following the coup d’état that overthrew the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, a rupture in the Honduran political process that enabled a corrupt elite to turn the country into a fiscal paradise.
Xiomara observed that her electoral victory in 2021 marked the beginning of structural changes for the benefit of the people and nature. Her administration seeks to construct democratic socialism in order to significantly improve the quality of life of the people. She emphasized that the true independence of Honduras is in march, and she expressed the hope that Latin America will be a region of peace, social justice, and socialism.
She stressed the importance of maintaining unity in the Group of 77 and in CELAC, necessary for eliminating the sanctions, neocolonialism, and wars that cause so much suffering and pain in the world. The moment has arrived, she declared, to end the massive privatization of the territories of our nations. She recalled the important contributors of the leaders of the region who forged CELAC, including Fidel, Chávez, Lula, Rafael, Evo, and Nicolás Maduro, seeking a more just and alternative form of regional integration.
Conclusion - The global transition from neocolonialism to sovereign independence
When well-known revolutionary leaders of the peoples of the Third World began their historic struggle for an alternative and more just international world order in Bandung in 1955, they acted on behalf of twenty-nine newly independent African and Asian nations that were just beginning to discover the pitfalls of independence in the emerging neocolonial world order. Today, the Third World struggle has attained the committed participation of more than one hundred governments that represent the majority of humanity. Several of these governments direct dynamic economies that are active participants in the technological revolution of our time, capable of implementing their alternative vision in practice, which they are doing step-by-step. Moreover, the struggle has arrived to mature ideological consciousness, thanks to the leadership of China and Cuba, among others.
I have long believed that the key to our understanding in the societies of the North is listening to the voices of those who are leaders of the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements of the Third World. We today can conclude from such listening that we are witnesses today to a worldwide historical transition from neocolonialism to an alternative world-system not yet named, but characterized by norms and practices that respect the true sovereignty of nations. The transition is being driven by people’s anti-imperialist movements throughout the once-colonized regions of the earth; and it counts among its leaders the heads of states that have declared for the construction of socialism. It is a force so powerful that “not even the marching of mighty armies can stop it,” to recall the words of Dr. King.
For the United States, the moral choice is fundamental. It can continue being the world’s principal source of destruction and barbarity; or it can recover the dignity that it possessed when, in spite of its imperfections, it put forth the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, which would be embraced by the peoples of the world a century and a half after they were first uttered: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
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