SAMIR AMIN
THE REVIVAL
OF THE MOVEMENT OF NON ALIGNED COUNTRIES
If the
repeated discourse of the Western media is to be believed, the idea of the
revival of the Non-Alignment is unrealistic. According to that discourse, all
that happened in the world between 1945 and 1990 can be explained merely by the
‘cold war’ and nothing else. The Soviet Union disappeared and the page of the
Cold War has been turned, and any posture analogous to what we have known has
no meaning. Let us examine the ineptitude of this discourse and its incredibly
dismissive prejudice - nay, even racism. What is its basis? The real story of
Bandung and Non-Alignment that arose from it showed that the peoples of Asia
and Africa actually seized at the time an initiative by themselves and for
themselves. The reader will find in what I have written a demonstration that
the Non-Alignment was already a movement of countries non aligned on
globalisation ’ in contrast to the globalisation that the imperialist powers
wanted to impose on countries that had regained their independence,
substituting the deceased colonialism with a neocolonialism.
Non-Alignment
constituted a refusal to comply with the requirements of this renewed
imperialist globalisation. Imperialism won the battle, for the moment at least.
Non-Alignment was, therefore, itself a positive factor in the transformation of
the world for the better, despite all its limitations. The Soviet Union
understood at the time the benefits it could derive through its support
for the Non-Aligned, especially because
the Soviet Union was also in conflict with the dominant system of
globalisation, and suffered from the isolation into which the Atlantic powers
locked it. Moscow realised that by supporting the Non-Aligned it could break
this isolation. In contrast, the imperialist powers fought against
Non-Alignment because it was not ‘aligned’ to globalisation.
Call it
‘Bandung 2’, if you like. Of course ‘the world has changed’ since then (this
observation reveals its extreme banality). Thus the new imperialist
globalisation is not a copy of the one that Bandung faced. The discourse that
reduces Non-Alignment to an avatar of the Cold War reflects a persistent
prejudice in the West: the peoples of Asia and Africa were unable to drive the
initiative on their own then, and they are no more capable of doing so now. They are doomed forever to be manipulated by
the major powers (primarily Western of course). This contempt barely conceals a
profound racism. As if the Algerians, for example had taken up arms to please
Moscow, or perhaps Washington, and they had been manipulated to this end by
certain leaders who had chosen to play a game of playing one power against
another. No, their decision stemmed from their just desire to be free of
colonialism, the form that globalisation took in that era. And when they
implemented their own decisions, the battleground is drawn between those who
supported the struggles and those who opposed them. That is the reality of
history.
1. We live
in an unbalanced globalisation, unequal and unjust. Some have exclusive rights
to access all the resources of the planet for their own use or even to waste.
For others, their obligation is to accept this order and adjust their own
requirements, even to give up their own development, waive their rights to
basic food, education, health, life itself for large segments of their people -
our people. This unjust order is called ‘globalisation’.
We should
even accept that the beneficiary powers of this unjust world order, mainly the
United States, the European Union and associated military partners in NATO, have
the right to intervene by force of arms to enforce their abusive rights to
use - even to pillage - our own wealth.
They do so using various pretexts - the war against terrorism when it suits
them. But the facts show that in neither Iraq nor Libya, for example, did their
intervention help restore democracy. On
the contrary, their interventions have simply destroyed the states and
societies concerned. They did not open the way to progress and democracy, but
rather closed them.
Our
movement could be called the Non-Aligned Movement on Globalisation. We are not
opponents to any form of globalisation. We are opponents of this unjust form of
globalisation in which we are the victims.
2. The
responses we want to give to this challenge are simple to formulate in terms of
their major principles.
We have the
right to chose our own path of development. The powers that were and are the
beneficiaries of the existing order should accept to adjust themselves to the
requirements of our development. The adjustment must be mutual, not unilateral.
That is, it is not the weak who have to adjust to the strong, but rather the
strong need to adjust to the needs of the weak. The legal principle should be
designed to redress injustices, not to perpetrate them. We have the right to
implement our own sovereign development projects. We reject the tenets of
globalisation that are currently in place.
Our
sovereign development project must be designed to enable our nations and our
states to industrialise as they see fit, in the legal and social structures of
their choice, those that allow us to capture and develop ourselves with modern
technologies. These must be designed to ensure food sovereignty and allow all
strata of our people to be the beneficiaries of development, halting ongoing
processed of impoverishment.
The
implementation of our sovereign projects require us to regain our financial
sovereignty. It is not up to us to adjust the financial plunder for the benefit
of the banks of the dominant economic powers. The global financial system must itself be forced
to adjust to the implications of our sovereignty.
It is up to
us to define the ways and means of developing South-South cooperation that can
facilitate the success of our sovereign development projects.
3. Our
movement can and must act within the UN to restore their rights violated by the
unjust globalisation order.
At present
a so-called ‘international community’ has proclaimed itself as a replacement of
the UN. Media of dominant powers keep repeating the phrases: “The International
Community believes this or that, decides this or that”. Looking more closely,
we discover that the ‘international community’ they refer to is made up of the
United States, the European Union and two or three handpicked countries such as
Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Is there
anything more seriously insulting to our people than this self-proclamation ?
China, Algeria , Egypt , Senegal, Angola, Venezuela , Brazil , Thailand,
Russia, Costa Rica and many other countries apparently no longer exist. They no
longer have the right to make their voices heard in the international
community. Yes, we bear a great responsibility in the UN environment where we
are a major group. But this requires the restoration of the rights of the UN,
the only acceptable framework for the expression of the international
community.
4. We can
now take a look at our past, which provides us a great lessons about what we
once were and what we should be again.
The
Non-Aligned Movement was formed in 1960 in the path opened by the Bandung
Conference of 1955. It sought to assert the rights of our peoples and nations
of Asia and Africa which had not then been recognised as being worthy of being
partners in the reconstruction of a new world order. Our movement was not the
by-product of conflict between the two major powers of the time - the USA and
the USSR - and the "Cold War " as may try to make us believe. In the
aftermath of the Second World War, Asia and Africa were still largely subjected
to odious colonialism. Our people were engaged in powerful struggles to regain
our independence by peaceful means or by means of liberation war if necessary.
Having regained our independence and restored the existence of our states we
found ourselves in conflict with the world order that wanted to impose on us at
the time. Our Movement of Non-Aligned Countries then proclaimed our right to
choose our route to development, implemented laws and forced the powers of the
time to adjust to the demands of our development.
Certain
powers at that time accepted it. Others did not. Western powers - the United
States and the countries of what would become the European Union, already
involved in NATO since 1949 - have never hidden their hostility to our own
project of independent development. They fought us by all means at their
disposal. Other powers , the USSR first, chose a different path for us. They
accepted and even supported the positions of the Movement of Non-Aligned
Countries. The military power that the
USSR represented during that era in effect limited the possibilities of
aggression by those nostalgic of colonialism and consistently ardent supporters
of the unjust international order.
We can
therefore say that even if the world today is no longer that of 1960 - a banal
and obvious observation - the Movement of Non-Aligned there was already 60-year
ago was a Movement of countries Non Aligned on Globalisation, that
globalisation they wanted to impose on us at the time.
May 2014
