The rise of the global south philosophical, geopolitical and economic trends of the 21st century

His recent work focuses on China’s engagement with Africa, whichthe Economic and Social Research Council funded by a series of grants.Professor Mohan published extensively in geography,

Economic Trends of the 21st Century

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

THE RISE OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Philosophical, Geopolitical and Economic Trends of the 21st Century

Copyright © 2013 by World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd.

All rights reserved This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.

For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher.

ISBN 978-981-4397-80-3

In-house Editors: Divya Srikanth & Sandhya Venkatesh

Typeset by Stallion Press

Email: enquiries@stallionpress.com

Printed in Singapore

Dennis Kumetat first produced his draft while Colonel Muammaral-Gaddafi was still the undisputed leader of Libya While the Libyanimbroglio was still far from certain in mid-2011, he successfully recom-posed his draft to presciently take account of the ever-changing politicallandscape of the North African country All of the other authors, AnouarMajid, Rita Giacalone, Amadu Sesay, Olayode Kehinde Olusola, MoshoodOmotosho, Nicolas Depetris Chauvin, Marat Terterov, Marine Vallet,

v

Claudia Nocente, Madan Bezbaruah, Giles Mohan, Sachin Chaturvedi, andHalla Thorsteinsd´ottir are sincerely thanked for their significant efforts

to realize this scholarly work Additionally, my research assistant, ArthurDeLong, worked long hours to bring this project to fruition His efforts areappreciated

The generous support of Harvard University’s Dubai Initiative allowed

me to travel extensively to develop the background for this volume Theirconstant assistance was a significant help to this project’s initial formation

I also appreciate the unflagging assistance of Harvard University and thevarious scholars and experts who played a crucial role in the review andfinal birth of this project

A heartfelt thanks is extended to the American University in Kuwait,the Dubai School of Government, and Georgetown University’s School ofForeign Service in Doha for generously allowing me access to their respectivefaculties and granting me office space during the early stages of my researchand formulation of the book project Sarah Al-Khairulla’s patient listening

of the various permutations and unceasing changes that took place duringthe development of this somewhat broad theme contributed immense value,and she is sincerely thanked I also express my gratitude to my father andmother, whose unceasing motivation allowed me to plumb the depths oftheir vast knowledge on this theme, as well as their historical memory ofliving in the era of decolonization There are also many other people whoseinvolvement was pivotal, and without whom this volume would not exist.They are also recognized for their kind efforts

Justin DarginOxford, United Kingdom

January 2013

Part One: Cooperation in the Global South:

1 How the South Was Born: Reflections on the Geography

Part Two: Conflict and Resolution: Geostrategic

Cooperation in Africa and the Arab/

6 The Gulf States and South–South Cooperation 153

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

7 South–South Cooperation and the Impacts on Sub-Saharan

Africa and the Maghreb Region: Missed Opportunities and

Mhamed Biygautane and Nicolas Depetris Chauvin

8 Searching for an End Game in the West’s Unwinnable

Wars in the South: The Experience of Counter-TerrorismStrategies in a Selection of Muslim Countries 213

Marat Terterov, Marine Vallet, and Claudia Nocente

Part Three: Trade, Tourism, and Migration

11 Promoting Industrialization: Trade and Industrial

Justin Dargin

12 South–South Cooperation in the WTO: Doha to Cancun 349

Adhip Chaudhuri

13 South–South Cooperation and Emerging Economies:

Insights from Health Sector Cooperation between

Sachin Chaturvedi and Halla Thorsteinsd´ ottir

About the Editor

Justin Dargin has been actively involved in researching and teaching

about global geopolitics and economic issues for many years He is anEnergy and Geopolitics Scholar at the University of Oxford He was aformer Research Fellow with The Dubai Initiative at Harvard University,where he won a Harvard award for his groundbreaking research into theMENA energy/power sector He is also a Fulbright Scholar of the MiddleEast and North Africa Mr Dargin was also a Visiting Professor at a SetonHall Law School program, where he taught a highly regarded internationalenergy law and geopolitics course

Currently, Mr Dargin sits on a variety of boards, such as the board ofdirectors of the non-profit International Energy Foundation He was on thereview committee for Fulbright Scholars and is a member of the UnitedNations Alliance of Civilizations as a global energy expert He has beenfeatured extensively for his expert opinion on major global TV channelssuch as Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and Al Hurra He has also been quoted

extensively in the International Herald Tribune, The Economist, the

Asso-ciated Press, and the Middle East Economic Digest, amongst many other

media outlets

ix

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About the Contributors

Deniz Altınba¸ s is an expert in international affairs and has worked for

AV˙IM (Centre for Eurasian Studies), an Ankara-based think-tank, since

2009 Previously, she worked at ASAM, the largest think-tank in Turkey

Dr Altinba¸s is an Adjunct Professor of International Relations and PoliticalScience at Bilkent University and Ba¸skent University, where she teaches His-tory of Political Thought, European Union Politics, and Turkey–EuropeanUnion Relations Dr Altinba¸s completed her undergraduate studies at theDepartment of Political Science at Bilkent University and received her PhDfrom the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Gazi University.Her research interests are Western and European politics as well as identityand existence issues of the Armenian diaspora Dr Altinba¸s attends numer-ous national and international academic conferences and organizations as

a speaker and has been featured extensively on various radio and television

programmes Dr Altinba¸s is the author of The Impact of Islam in Europe

within the Case of France: Transformation of European States and Societies

by Muslims, which was published in 2011.

Madan Bezbaruah is a Permanent Representative (Hon) of the

UN-WTO For five years, he worked as Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, forthe Government of India He has a long and distinguished career in pub-lic service in India and has held many senior positions in Governmentsuch as Minister (Economic), High Commission of India, London; BankingOmbudsman of the Reserve Bank of India; Principal Adviser to the Plan-ning Commission of India; Secretary of Home, Education, Finance Depart-ments, in the Provincial Government of Assam; and Chairman of the AssamState Electricity Board Mr Bezbaruah holds a First Class Master’s degree

in Economics from Delhi School of Economics and an MPA degree fromHarvard University, USA

Mhamed Biygautane is the Director of Arab Governance and Public

Management Research Program at the Dubai School of Government andspecializes on topics such as governance in the Middle East and NorthAfrica (MENA) region, sustainable economic policies in the MENA region,knowledge management, and public sector performance Mr Biygautane

xi

is an Adjunct Professor at Zayed University, where he teaches courses ininternational relations and history Mr Biygautane has worked on severalUN-, OECD-, and World Bank-funded studies to foster governance andeconomic competitiveness in the MENA region Mr Biygautane also serves

as a Middle East and North Africa Expert for the European GeopoliticalForum, where he provides strategic advice on the economic development

of the MENA region Mr Biygautane has also been featured extensively in

the BBC, The New York Times, and other prestigious international and

regional media outlets for his expert opinion

Sachin Chaturvedi is a Senior Fellow at the Research and

Informa-tion System for Developing Countries, a think-tank with the Ministry ofExternal Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi Until recently, he wasGlobal Justice Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International Affairs

at Yale University, USA, where he worked on drug prices and issuesrelated to intellectual property rights He is the author of two booksand has published several research articles in various prestigious jour-nals His experiences/assignments include working at the German Develop-ment Institute (2007), Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla (2005), andthe University of Amsterdam for the Dutch Ministry of External Affairs(1996) Mr Chaturvedi has also worked closely with several internationalagencies such as the World Bank, UNESCAP, FAO, and several other UNagencies

Adhip Chaudhuri is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University,

with a joint appointment at the School of Foreign Service and the ment of Economics He completed his early education in India, obtaining his

Depart-MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics He then completedhis PhD in Economics from Columbia University Dr Chaudhuri teachescourses on international trade, ethical issues in global trade, and the role ofmultinational corporations He is currently conducting research on OutwardFDI from Brazil, China, and India

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is Co-Director of the Kuwait Research

Pro-gramme at the London School of Economics and an Associate Fellow on theMiddle East North Africa (MENA) Programme at Chatham House He is

the author of Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the

Post-oil Era (Hurst, 2011) and co-editor of The Transformation of the Gulf: Politics, Economics, and the Global Order (Routledge, 2011) He is also the

author of the paper “Repositioning the GCC States in the Changing Global

Order,” which appeared in the Journal of Arabian Studies, Vol 1, Iss 2, in

December 2011

Nicolas Depetris Chauvin is an Associate Professor at Universidad

de Buenos Aires and Senior Research Advisor at the African Center forEconomic Transformation He is a development economist with extensiveresearch and policy analysis experience in Africa, Latin America, and theMiddle East Dr Chauvin has held academic positions at the University ofOxford, the Dubai School of Government, Sciences Po, and INSEAD,among others Dr Chauvin was also a researcher at the United NationsDevelopment Programme, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Devel-opment Bank He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University

Rita Giacalone is a Professor of Economic History at the Department of

Economics, Universidad de Los Andes (Venezuela), and Coordinator of theRegional Integration Research Group (GRUDIR) Previously, she was theDirector of the School of Political Science (Universidad de Los Andes) andCoordinator of REDINRE, an ALFA Program network of European and

Latin American universities Dr Giacalone was also Editor of Revista

Vene-zolana de Ciencia Pol´ıtica and Revista Agroalimentaria Dr Giacalone also

lectured as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania (USA),Instituto Tecnol´ogico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and Universi-dad Aut´onoma de M´exico (Mexico), Universidad de La Plata (Argentina),Stockholm University (Sweden), Universit´e de Toulouse-Le Mirail (France),and Essex University (UK) Dr Giacalone completed her PhD in Historyfrom Indiana University (USA) and was awarded a Fulbright–Hayes Schol-arship

Dennis Kumetat was a Kuwait Programme PhD Scholar at the London

School of Economics from 2008 to 2011 He has extensive experience inregional diplomacy, Middle Eastern energy issues, security policy, the his-tory of German–Arab relations, and German–African affairs Dr Kumetatwas a visiting researcher at numerous institutions such as the Institutd’Etudes Politiques de Paris; the German Wuppertal Institute for Climate,Energy and the Environment; and the Gulf Research Center Dr Kumetatearned his MA degrees in Arab and Middle Eastern Studies from theAmerican University of Beirut and in History, Theology, and Philosophyfrom the University of Cologne Dr Kumetat received his PhD from theLondon School of Economics, where he focused on energy and foreign pol-icy in the Middle East and North Africa

Anouar Majid is the Director of the Center for Global Humanities and

Associate Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of New England

in Maine, USA He is a native of Tangier, Morocco, and his writings in thelast 15 years have dealt with the place of Islam in the age of globalizationand Muslim–Western relations since 1492 His academic books, published

by Duke and Stanford Universities and University of Minnesota, have allbeen critically acclaimed Professor Majid’s work and life have been profiled

by Bill Moyers in the PBS program Bill Moyers Journal and by Al Jazeera’s

Date in Exile series He has written for the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, and other publications He is also a novelist, the

author of Si Yussef, first published in 1992 His latest book, Islam and

America: Building a Future Without Prejudice, was published by Rowman

and Littlefield in early 2012

Giles Mohan is Professor of International Development at the UK’s Open

University He is a human geographer who studies African governance andthe transnational connections to and from Africa, especially relating tomigrants His recent work focuses on China’s engagement with Africa, whichthe Economic and Social Research Council funded by a series of grants.Professor Mohan published extensively in geography, development studies,and African studies journals and has consulted for a range of BBC docu-mentaries on issues of international development Professor Mohan’s latest

co-authored book, China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Powering

Devel-opment? was published in 2012 by Palgrave MacMillan.

Claudia Nocente is a Research Associate at the European Geopolitical

Forum She received her BA in Political Science and International Relationsfrom the University of Padua (Italy) and her MA in International ConflictAnalysis from the University of Kent in Brussels with a dissertation on statesovereignty, the enforcement of no-fly zones, and humanitarian intervention.She is fluent in Italian, English, and Spanish; has basic knowledge of Frenchand German; and is currently studying Classical Arabic

Olayode Kehinde Olusola is Senior Lecturer in the Department of

Inter-national Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria He cializes in governance, civil society, and developmental issues in Africa Herecently authored “The Africa-EU Strategic Partnership Agreement and

spe-the MDGs” in Osita Eze and Amadu Sesay (eds.) Africa and Europe in

the 21 st Century (2010); and co-authored with Amadu Sesay, “A Force for

Integration or Marginalization: A Perspective from West Africa” in Regional

Perspectives on Globalization (2007) In 2012, Dr Olayode provided

tech-nical support to UN Women (formerly UNIFEM) in the formulation of aGender Policy for the Nigeria Police Force

Mashood Omotosho teaches International Relations at Obafemi

Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria He holds a PhD in Political Sciencefrom Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria He was a visiting fellow

at the Department of Political Science, University of Florida, USA, inJune 2010 He won a research grant from the American Political Sci-ence Association, NW, Washington DC, USA, in 2010 He was awarded

a prestigious academic fellowship from the highly regarded Council for theDevelopment of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in 2008.His current research activities include Conflict and Conflict Management;Ethno-Religious Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa; Democratic Governance

in Sub-Saharan Africa; and Election Observation and Monitoring in WestAfrica Sub-Region

Amadu Sesay is a Professor of International Relations at the Department

of International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria Hewas a Professor of Integration in Africa at the prestigious Nigerian Institute

of International Affairs, Lagos, Nigeria, from 2010 to 2012 He specializes

in Africa governance/politics, as well as security and conflict analysis His

most recent works are Africa and Europe in the 21 st Century (2010;

co-edited by Osita Eze); and ECOWAS and Peace Making in West Africa

(2009)

Marat Terterov is the founder and Principal Director of the European

Geopolitical Forum He has written widely on the countries of the formerUSSR and Middle East from the perspective of their geopolitics, domesticsecurity, and international relations Dr Terterov also has worked as a con-sultant and adviser under the auspices of a number of government-relatedand interstate organizations, including the Department of Trade and Indus-try in London, USAID in Cairo, the Foreign Ministry of Egypt, the EnergyCharter Secretariat in Brussels, and a range of projects in the former Sovietstates Dr Terterov is a visiting lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at theUniversity of Kent in Brussels Dr Terterov obtained his DPhil (PhD) inPolitical Science from St Antony’s College, Oxford University He speaksEnglish and Russian and is conversant in Egyptian Arabic

Halla Thorsteinsd´ ottir is the Principal of Small Globe, a non-profit

organization As an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto,

Dr Thorsteinsd´ottir actively researched health biotechnology innovation inCanada and in low- and middle-income countries such as Brazil, Cuba,China, India, and South Africa Her current research focuses on examiningstrategies for international alliances and their contributions toward innova-tion Dr Thorsteinsd´ottir’s research has been published in high-impact jour-

nals such as Nature Biotechnology, Nature Genetics, and The Lancet, and been covered by global media such as The Economist and The Financial

Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, UK, andcompleted a Master’s degree in Development Economics from the NormanPaterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, Canada.She has received several awards, including the Canadian Institutes ofHealth Research Maud Menten New Principal Investigator Prize

Marine Vallet works at European Movement International, an

interna-tional organization supporting European development Prior to moving toBrussels, she lived in North Africa, working for various organizations, anexperience from which she acquired an in-depth understanding of the prac-tical impact of policy implementation Ms Vallet is also on the staff of YoungProfessionals in Foreign Policy She holds a BA in International Relationsand Political Science from Simmons College and an MA in InternationalDevelopment from the University of Kent

South–South Cooperation and the

Global Economic (R)evolution

Justin Dargin

School of Geography and Environment, Oxford University, UK

South–South Cooperation (SSC), through enhanced collaboration amongstthe countries comprising the Global South, has often been on the frontpages since early 1970s, when the United Nations Conference on Trade andDevelopment (UNCTD) promoted the New International Economic Order(NIEO) However, the birth of the Global South as an entity could perhaps

be traced to a 1949 speech, when US President Harry S Truman outlinedAmerica’s obligations to its allies and the recently decolonized countries.Against the background of the Cold War, Harry Truman lumpedtogether the “underdeveloped nations of the world” and spoke about theneed to assist them, presumably so that they were not lured into the social-ist camp.1The significance of Truman’s speech was that it included, for thefirst time, the fight against underdevelopment in the developing world as acornerstone of US foreign policy The speech also highlighted other points,namely, the US support for the United Nations, the formation of NATO

as a joint American–European defense arrangement to counter the Sovietmilitary threat, and the creation of the US Marshall Plan to aid Europeanreconstruction At the time, the final point about aiding underdevelopedregions of the world was added as almost an afterthought

When Truman spoke about the need to marshal US resources to assistthe underdeveloped nations of the world, he, perhaps inadvertently, weddedAmerican foreign policy to capitalist development as a shared ideal that

1

Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S Truman, 1949, Inaugural Address,January 20, 1949

xvii

the underdeveloped regions of the world must reach in their quest for peaceand prosperity Truman’s use of the term “underdevelopment” created anew geopolitical reality for the recently independent developing nationsand shaped the way that developed nations viewed these emergent nations.And, just as importantly, he shaped how each group viewed itself.

Before underdevelopment became a widely accepted ideological andpolitical category, the most pressing economic and political issues in Asia,Africa, and Latin America were presented in the heavily politicized dialec-tic of the “colonizer and the colonized.” In the post-colonial reality thatfollowed World War II (WWII), this bifurcated model had limited utilityfor American policy makers, who geared up for the titanic struggle againstthe perceived threat of global socialism In order to remake the world in itsimage, the US, however purposefully, promoted free enterprise as the dom-inant strategy that contained a core equation: capitalism + democracy =prosperity

While polemics about underdeveloped regions took center stage duringthe 1960s and 1970s, many political and social commentators clashed aboutwhat the term “Third World” actually signified For some observers, seg-menting the world into three separate regions, i.e., the First World being theindustrialized West, the Second World being centrally planned economiestypically located within the socialist camp of Eastern Europe, and the ThirdWorld generally referring to the newly independent former colonies, was asimplistic categorization For others, the world was indeed one integratedunit that defied segmentation, in other words, a global market

Beginning with the 1950s, the developing nations attempted to exertpolitical pressure to effectuate changes in the global economic architecture.The 1955 Bandung Conference, convened in Bandung, Indonesia, was prin-cipally concerned with promoting a “positive neutralism.” This term meant,normatively, that the developing countries should not align themselves witheither the Capitalist camp or the Socialist bloc, instead they should form

a neutral alliance working for their own perceived common interests Eventhough such historic figures as Jamal Abdul Nasser and Jawaharwal Nehrupromoted South–South trade and cooperation with strident rhetoric, littlereal progress resulted Despite the international meetings and conventions,developing countries seemed chronically incapable of lifting themselves fromprotracted poverty

Political economists attempted to explain the rampant persistentpoverty in the developing world by resorting to the Theory of UnequalExchange Originally Marxist in origin, this theory presumed that

∗Some countries with a population less than 1 million were excluded from the analysis.

Source: Chase-Dunn, Kawano, and Brewer (2000).

Figure 1 World map of countries by trading status, late 20th century, using the world system differentiation into core

countries, semi-periphery countries, and periphery countries

relationships between capital and labor were inherently asymmetrical.What was originally a concept premised upon the relationship betweenvarious economic classes within a country was conceptually extended toportray the relationship between the capital-exporting Northern countriesand the primary-product–exporting and labor-intensive developing coun-tries Of course, just as the original theory implied, in true Marxian fash-ion, a measure of economic exploitation, the bedrock of this theory tiedthe concept of perceived unfair colonial trading practices to what DavidHarvey2referred to as “accumulation by dispossession.”

Beginning in the 1950s, economists and political scientists, such as AlbertHirschman, Samir Amin, Gunner Myrdal, John Friedman, Gunder Frank, andJohan Galtung, criticized the economic relationships between the developedand developing regions for their fundamental imbalances that were biased infavor of the wealthy countries In 1962, the Greco-French economist, ArghiriEmmanuel, contended persuasively, perhaps even provocatively, that eco-nomic exchanges between the Global South (developing countries) and theNorth (predominantly OECD countries) were generally “unfair.” Emmanuelargued that these trade relationships were prejudiced against the poorer coun-tries in the “periphery” and “semi periphery,” and in favor of the wealthiercountries at the “core.” (See Figure 1 for a late 20th century map of core, semi-periphery, and periphery countries.3)

The main thesis of the Theory of Unequal Exchange claims that priceinequality is the fundamental mechanism through which the global mar-ket channels the global surplus to the core countries and is the mechanismthrough which the military and political suppression of wages in the periph-ery allows products to be produced much less expensively than in the core

region.4 More simply, unequal exchange occurs when developing countriestrade low-priced primary products (e.g., bananas, cocoa, oil) for expensivemanufactured goods (e.g., cars and computers).5 The Theory of UnequalExchange contends that whenever the core and peripheral countries meet inthe proverbial global marketplace to exchange goods, the exchange results

in a net transfer of wealth from the periphery to the core.6

According to this theory’s proponents, the global market is a fa¸cadefor an exploitive trade system that uses repressive regimes in the devel-oping world, backed by the awesome military might of the industrializedcountries.7 According to scholars such as Wallerstein, Chase-Dunn, andPrebisch, persistent impoverishment results largely from the artificially lowcommodity prices that resign many developing countries to the periphery

of the global economy, where they are unable to implement social welfareprograms or infrastructure development for the common good The lack of

a viable welfare state, the theory continues, causes the governing bodies indeveloping countries to have low popular legitimacy and leaves developingcountries uniquely vulnerable to popular uprisings and palace coups.8 Theonly states in modern times able to break this cycle so far have been theEast Asian Tigers and the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China),all of which used strong statist industrial policies, rather than free tradeprinciples, for development

of the converse occurred during the 1973 oil embargo, when the Arab oil-exportingcountries of OPEC, over a period of several weeks, quadrupled the posted prices

of oil This increase in posted prices and the embargo on oil to the US and theNetherlands led to the greatest transfer of wealth from the West to the developingworld (mainly Arab oil-producing countries) in modern history (Frankel, 2008,

p 115)

7Lamprecht (2000), p 6

8

This can be seen clearly in the constant coups, street protests, and revolutions

in the developing world The Arab Spring, and tension relating to China’s shakymodernization process, also exemplify this notion See Daragahi (2011), Waller-stein (2004), Prebisch (1962), and Chase-Dunn (1998)

Emmanuel, among other economists, successfully aligned the Marxiantheory of class relations with an international trade model, in which theprimary-product–exporting nations were more or less “proletarian,” and

the consuming industrial countries were de facto “capitalist” or

“bour-geois” nations.9The proponents of the Theory of Unequal Exchange, many

of whom hailed from a variety of disciplines, concluded that, in the face

of uneven economic development, and for a variety of other reasons, free

trade, or even trade per se, is inherently iniquitous.10Dunkley insisted thatthe reasons ran the gamut, i.e., from assumptions that trade terms and con-ditions ultimately favored the Global North, to arguments that the labor-intensive sector incurred an innate economic disadvantage, to argumentsthat the impact of extremely low wages in developing countries, in addition

to uneven international trade, may propagate and exacerbate differentials intechnology and technical skill between developing and developed countries,

as well as reflections on the disruptive impacts that modern technologiesmay have on traditional industries.11

In the 20th century, the Singer–Prebisch Theory precipitated the ern debate on Theory of Unequal Exchange and broadened it beyondits Marxian parameters An Argentine economist, and the first secretary-general of UNCTAD, Raul Prebisch (1901–1986), and his colleague, HansSinger (1910–2006), observed what they considered to be the inherenteconomic inequalities in relations between the natural-resource–producingcountries and the developed consuming countries

mod-9One of the major earliest proponents of this theory was Sultan Galiev, a nent Tartar communist during the early 20th century Galiev upended ortho-dox Marxism and claimed that national liberation struggles in the developingworld were “proletarian” in nature and not “reactionary.” He extrapolated and

promi-exclaimed that, “Muslim nations are proletarian nations their national

move-ment has the characteristic of a socialist revolution.” For Galiev, and thinkerswho subscribed to this particular line of thinking, in the West, there was a pro-letarian social class, whereas in the East (i.e., developing nations), the colonizedwere entirely proletarian nations (Ferro, 1997, p 250)

10Dunkley (2000, p 119)

11

Dunkley (2000), p 119 The role of disruptive technologies, in this case,economies of scale and manufactures, were characterized as the cause of India’sdecline as a major textile-exporting country and its subsequent deindustrializa-tion in the 18th and 19th centuries See, generally, Clingingsmith (2005)

Prebisch reasoned that primary-product–producing and –exportingcountries faced threats that previous economists had not considered, namelythe long-term price degradation of primary products on the internationalmarket.12According to the Singer–Prebisch theory, as echoed subsequently

by Immanuel Wallerstein, the international economic order is such thatglobal fragmentation enabled the core countries to dictate economic rela-tions to the peripheral nations, whose dependence on Western consumerdemand left a paucity of alternatives.13 Prebisch, Singer, and Wallersteinbegan a veritable intellectual revolution to the extent that they directlyquestioned the operational premises of the global marketplace that pro-moted the abolition of government involvement in most economic sectors,and that directly established the groundwork for the economic rise of thecountries that were formerly in the economic periphery

Nonetheless, much of the so-called “Rise of the Rest” could be attributed

to several factors that were not just due to the Herculean efforts on the part

of the Global South These factors were just as much, if not more so, itated by the Global North.14First, the US wanted to support and increasethe economic performance of many of its allies in the developing world.Even as the Marshall plan effectively warded off the allure of internationalcommunism in Western Europe’s post-WWII economies, the US believedthat rising living standards in the Global South continued to be the mostpotent anti-communist propaganda

precip-Second, much of China’s current phenomenal growth resulted not justfrom Deng Xiaoping’s farsighted planning but also from the desire of the

US President Richard Nixon and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

to exploit the Sino-Soviet split As a result, the highest levels of US

poli-cymaking decided to open up China in order to contain the Soviet Union.

12The notion of long-term price degradation generated criticism in the 2000s when

an array of commodities, such as corn, wheat, gold, and silver, sharply increased

in price in the wake of robust demand from emerging nations Meanwhile, the shoring of manufacturing from developed countries to emerging countries causedsignificant dislocation and deindustrialization in many regions of the developedworld The traditional terms of trade theory may need to be revisited

off-13

Mallorquin (2006)

14Of course, this is not an exhaustive list; the information revolution was asimportant in consolidating the power of the Global North, even though it wasalso a centrifugal force that dispersed global power

However, that strategic decision outlived its initial impetus and directlyled to American investment in China after Deng Xiaoping liberalized cru-cial aspects of China’s economy Third, the stagflation that occurred inthe wake of the 1973–1974 oil embargo, the increased work stoppages inUS-based factories, and increased foreign competition undergirded by lowproduction costs, led US corporations to move manufacturing centers tosome Southern countries to avail themselves of lower production costs andmuch more tranquil labor–management relations This amounted to a shiftfrom a centralized framework that relied upon vertical integration in theindustrial capital age to a flattened, perhaps even a rhizomatic, structure

in what is often termed the Age of Finance Capital While it would beremiss to not mention the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, it is essential toremember that this crisis, while devastating to the global economy, merelyexpedited trends that were already existent It certainly was not the singu-lar cause for the shift of global economic power

To chart in one volume the myriad movements that caused, and insome cases, resulted from the Global South’s increased economic power, is

an unenviable task This volume was born out of the need to frame, as cisely as possible, the unprecedented permutations occurring in nearly everyknown economic and geopolitical sphere This colossal task required placingthese changes amid the evolving relationships between countries that, onone hand, dictated (and at the dawn of the 21st century, continue to dictate)and determined the pathway dependencies of the world, and those countries,which until quite recently (in the historical memory of anyone born beforethe end of the 20th century) only impacted the world through the amount

pre-of natural resources that they could provide to fuel the global economy

It is hoped that this collection of chapters will provide the reader withthe breadth and depth of two interrelated themes, the growing economic andgeopolitical clout of the Global South and the deepening interrelationshipsamong its respective members In keeping with the broad scope of thisvolume, the contributors’ chapters span the gamut from the philosophical,the economic, the historical, and the political, to account for the immenserevolution the world is undergoing Although many of these approachesoverlap, and they must if they are to be relevant, each author brings adifferent perspective to the topic he or she chose Nonetheless, the commonstrain between all the chapters is that they all provide thought-provokinganalyses and conclusions that are not derivative in nature and that differfrom mainstream literature dealing with this topic

This volume describes a world where the developed countries are indesperate need of cash infusions and many of the developing countrieshave the excess liquidity required to keep economy running The worldchanged dramatically after the collapse of global socialism and, with it,the “rejectionist front” that resisted incorporation into the global market.With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Fukuyama15penned a paean to the

new liberal order, The End of History and the Last Man, with a

disconcert-ing title that evoked both Hegelian and Nietzschian notions It could beconvincingly argued that, fueled by the Renaissance spirit of inquiry, “NewMen,” amongst them, explorers, middle class professionals, buccaneers, andfinanciers, embraced as their mantles Prometheus, Doctor Faustus, and the

Nietzschean Ubermensch (overman).

This spirit of inquiry was the breath of life that animated individualssuch as Columbus, Cortez, De Gama, Pizarro, Rhodes, and Napoleon FromEurope’s Renaissance perspective, these explorers-cum-conquerors personi-fied the individual who, against all odds, surmounted significant challenges

to parry the thrusts of fate and engrave his name in the annals of history

Of course, the myths that animated the Western man were based on thedomination of nature and other men (and women as well) This was not aquietist creed, even as it trampled ancient civilizations and nature under itsheel and resigned them to oblivion In spite of any well-deserved criticism,this is the world in which we live

One could argue what motivated these men, and thereby inscribed itselfinto the DNA of Western civilization ever since, was the “sentiment of rest-lessness.” Perhaps rarely perceived, restlessness was a necessary component

of the Western system that animated everything from the early impulse todiscover and colonize, to the later manifestations of the spread of capital-

ism throughout the world Fredrick Turner, in his nuanced book, Beyond

Geography, explained that Western civilization is primarily a culture of

dis-satisfaction (somewhat related to the Durkheimian concept of anomie), andthat this dissatisfaction caused the restlessness of those itinerant men whoburst out of the underbelly of Europe and brought the world to heel.16After the Western penetration of the various empires, kingdoms, prin-cipalities, and fiefdoms of long-forgotten peoples, the onset of the MachineAge added a new catalyst to this potent brew And, as Lewis Mumford

15

Fukuyama (1993)

16

Turner (1980)

argued, even though other civilizations had what we now term ogy,” it was the Western civilization, and it alone, that had the ingenuity

“technol-to synthesize the innovations and ideas of others With uncanny irony, ever, the Western Man unleashed the genii upon himself and, in doing so,

how-he capitulated to thow-he machine god

Since then, Western society submitted itself — even as the Ludditesquite quixotically attempted to smash destiny with their work harmmers —

to the inflexible and seemingly inexorable logic of machine rule As Michel

Foucault opined, even as the crack of the whip enslaved other cultures andpeoples, so had the relentless hum of the industrial machine conquered theWestern society.17 As a result, while the conquest and control of nature is

Man’s mission, Man’s own self-enslavement is already a fait accompli But,

in spite of any well-deserved criticism, this is the world in which we live.Even so, the Western world is jostling uncomfortably with the reemergence

of principlities and powers emanating from the Global South

The “Rise of the Rest” will likely continue apace, and the Southerncountries will contribute their voices to the international geopolitical andeconomic architecture Yet, the pathway dependencies exhibit now, andfor the foreseeable future, a Western tinge If someday the Global Southoutstrips the Northern countries in every metric that counts, the factremains that the North wrote the “rulebook.” This persists in the innumer-able treaties (bilateral, trilateral, multilateral, and otherwise), internationalorganizations, international law and customs, including education and lan-guage, that bind the world into a densely interconnected web, not merelyinfluenced by the North, but indeed driven by the same impulse that ledEurope to seek global mastery

As we must not forget, northwestern Europe had lain in the lands of global trade and geopolitics for the majority of world history Forinstance, it is estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 people lived inwhat is now Mexico City (along with an advanced administrative systemand bustling trade) at the beginning of the 16th century This was morethan four times the population of London at the time However, it was theemergence of the following two factors, along with a third that arose fromthe synthesis of the first two, that precipitated Northwestern Europe’s rise.The inauguration of the Age of Exploration by the itinerant navigator,Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus), and the unleashing of the

hinter-17

Mumford (2010)

Renaissance spirit of inquiry led to the Enlightenment and the IndustrialRevolution As a result of the Age of Exploration and the spirit of inquiry,non-Western cultures that became colonies were forced to adopt the West-ern “rulebook,” e.g., administrative, legal, and cultural norms Those coun-tries that resisted colonization were nevertheless obligated to incorporateWestern norms into their own To a certain regard, every chapter in thevolume touches upon this crucial theme, either directly or indirectly.This volume embraces two themes and delineates their interrelatedness,the growing geopolitical, economic, and cultural clout of the Global South,and the increase in South–South Cooperation (SSC) that buttresses thosesame factors The body of this volume is divided into three sections Eachsection discusses a particular aspect of SSC in the context of history, trade,and increased social interactions The chapters in Part One discuss thebirth of SSC from a historical, economic, geopolitical, and regionalist per-spectives.

Anouar Majid, who analyzes how the South as a mentality andphilosophy was born, traces its heritage to the Spanish Reconquista of theIberian Peninsula and the consequent expulsion of the Moors and Jews.Deniz Altinba¸s defines SSC as a protective tool that Southern coun-tries created to cultivate their own nodes of power and resistance in theface of the Global North’s overwhelming geopolitical and economic power.Altinba¸s illustrates that the rhetoric of anti-imperialism is still a powerfuland emotive force in SSC discourse, as exemplified by the persistent popu-larity of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales amongst the marginalized groups

in Latin America and elsewhere

Rita Giacolone argues that SSC is so essentially pragmatic that it mayeven retreat from the fraternal principles of the first Bandung conference.Giacolone asserts that the countries in the Global South are primarilyconcerned with protecting their economic gains globally through enhancedcooperation, without necessarily challenging the dominant economic archi-tecture as they did during the mid- to late-20th century

Part Two explores the history of conflict (military and civil) in Africaand the Arab/Islamic world This section takes as a departure point thenotion that conflict in this broad region could serve as a spur for greaterSSC with beneficial results if leveraged properly

Amadu Sesay, Olayode Kehinde Olusola, and Moshood Omotosho focustheir theoretical analysis on Africa (an often underappreciated region inSSC literature), to illustrate how African governments not only perceiveSSC as a means to combat challenges and threats but also promote

enhanced SSC to encourage technology innovation and structural formation within their own economies.

trans-Denis Kumetat analyzes Libya as a topical issue Kumetat traces

the emergence of the Libyan Jamahiriyya (direct democracy) experiment

during Gaddafi’s rule and his often mercurial intervention in continentalaffairs Kumetat argues that in the final analysis, no matter the final gov-ernance structure of Libya, the shadow of Gaddafi’s 42-year rule will reachfar beyond his death

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen demonstrates that, with their enhanced nomic power, the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) will become moreinvolved in the affairs of the Southern hemisphere Ulrichsen explains thattwo factors underlay the Gulf countries’ greater involvement in SSC Heargues that internal challenges and globalization, especially since the SovietUnion’s collapse, compelled the Gulf States to take affirmative steps tobuild closer intra-Gulf relationships and to offer overseas developmentalassistance to other Southern countries With an eye to the 21st century,Coates Ulrichsen also argues that the realignment of global power centersand the global financial crisis led the GCC member states to take a muchmore active role in preserving their interests in the global economy.Mhamed Biygautane and Nicolas Depetris Chauvin trace the often con-tentious roles of BRIC countries in the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africaneconomies Yet, these authors caution that, while there are opportunities forthe BRIC countries to assist in institution building, the recipients’ legacies

eco-of weak political institutions, high levels eco-of corruption, and mismanagement

of budgetary revenues may erode any opportunities that SSC creates.Marine Vallet, Marat Terterov, and Claudia Nocente consider the issue

of transnational armed movements and argue that the South, which is rich

in examples of successful counter-insurgency campaigns, could assist theWest, which grapples with a seemingly unending conflict in Afghanistan.They argue that the current focus of Western countries on the Muslimworld reflects a security matrix and a Western value system that guaran-tees that counter-insurgency efforts will result in an unparalleled failure.The authors argue that the West should learn from the developing world,which has many countries that have successfully dealt with violent anddrawn out insurgencies Their successes in arriving at peace rested uponnot just the sword, but featured the plowshare as the strategic centerpiece.Their successful resolutions relied upon an effective mix of legal strate-gies, rehabilitation programs for demobilized fighters, and developmental

aid programs into a framework that integrated former fighters into societyand provided them a role in the political process.

The final section of this volume explores trade, tourism, and tion as “soft” successful economic integrative tools that are often are notconsidered in the discourse Madan Bezbaruah sets forth a conceptualframework that links tourism’s massive economic heft with the South’senvironmental protection and poverty alleviation efforts Bezbaruah arguesthat regional cooperation, if practised across the Global South, may notonly result in sustainable tourism but also could become a positive economictool that achieves many of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.Giles Mohan, who provides an effective model of South–South migra-tion, contends that it can be either a positive or a negative factor in South-ern cooperation Mohan relies upon case studies of Chinese migration toAfrica and contends that Chinese immigrants are an essential element ofChina’s strategy for bilateral and multilateral relationships with Africa.Mohan reasons that, even though immigration is seldom considered, itcan either weaken or strengthen SSC Mohan concludes that the impact ofChinese immigrants on Chinese–African state-to-state relationships is mul-tifaceted He explains that, even while migration opens important venuesfor more robust levels of collaboration, racism and xenophobic tendenciesthat appear amongst African nationals and Chinese expatriates complicatethis picture

migra-Justin Dargin argues for a specific method of Southern industrial opment that would leverage a nation’s natural resource endowment tobuild backward-and-forward linkages throughout the national economy,and, thereby, construct a modern industrialized country Dargin argues thatprior strategies that utilized either Import-Substitution Industrialization(ISI) or Export-Oriented Industrialization (EOI) contain built-in limita-tions Dargin maintains that, by employing a multistaged process that cou-ples the benefits of a home market with the advantages that accrue withparticipation in the global economy, Southern countries will prime theirnational firms to compete internationally

devel-Adhip Chaudhuri recalls the experience of Southern countries in globaltrade negotiations, especially within the successive “Rounds” of the Gen-eral Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which essentially became aprecursor to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Chaudhuri shows thatwealthy Northern countries tended to dominate the Southern countries thatparticipated in trade liberalization deliberation Moreover, he observes that,

by 2003, Southern countries had begun to act in concert to challenge the

Northern countries’ trade practices and to promote their own ideals of fairglobal trade rules.

Chaudhuri urges that influential developing countries, including Brazil,China, India, and South Africa, not only assume an enhanced role in globaltrade negotiations but also assure that international institutions, such as theWTO, remain viable Perhaps to give impetus to this suggestion, he notesthat, even though the EU and the US appear unwilling to make substantiveconcessions on the agricultural sector, each revealed a growing interest in fos-tering regional trade relations and entering into bilateral trade agreements.From the perspective of one trade partner, such relationships may foretell sta-bility and dominance, viewed from the interests of another prospective tradepartner, they may spell commercial submission or economic instability Whilethe WTO is persistently reviled as a protector of the rich Northern countries,its rule-making apparatus also enables it to function as a shield for the highlyvulnerable, and sometimes suspicious, Southern nations, particularly whenthey negotiate as a cohesive trading block

In this volume’s final chapter, Sachin Chaturvedi and HallaThorsteind´ottir contend that one method for determining SSC’s futurecontours is to examine the Southern health sector’s growing market Inparticular, Chaturvedi and Thorsteind´ottir present the Indian–Braziliancollaboration in the health sector as an example of how the SSC can setthe stage for more robust economic collaboration in other spheres Thetwo authors present policy proposals that these two BRIC countries mayimplement to facilitate their own open markets that benefit one another’spharmaceutical products Joint research between these two countries willdoubtlessly enable them to combat life-threatening diseases In addition tothese noble objectives, SSC will empower each of these nations to move upthe value chain and compete with Western pharmaceutical companies indeveloping advanced medicine

Overall, this volume covers the multifaceted nature of geopolitics, worldtrade, and the emerging global culture against a background in which theGlobal South contributes its voice Globalization is proceeding apace, irre-spective of whether the Global North or Global South is at the helm.Whether the embryonic global voice is harmonious, discordant, or merely acacophony of various competing interests similar to the Great Power poli-tics of the bygone era remains to be seen But, as was intimated previously,because the Global North drew the current economic map, from Beijing toBaghdad, Western economic theories are guiding Southern policymakers

No matter how nationalistic China becomes, there is no discussion of

returning to the economic system of the Ming Dynasty, for instance EvoMorales, the first indigenous president of the majority indigenous Bolivia,came the closest to creating a non–Western-based economic system Moralespledged to create a new economic policy based on indigenous principles Itremains to be seen whether Morales’ theories could plausibly incorporatesubstantive economic restructuring or whether they will just be a superfi-cial facade to placate the electorate The constraints of the global economy

do not readily suffer unorthodox economic policies

Nonetheless, SSC is an important tool that can assist the world in bating common threats to the environment, such as global climate change,and mitigate the effects of extreme poverty that add immensely to global aswell as geopolitical instability The world is changing; global trade patternsare realigning at a rapid pace Nonetheless, over the next several decades,SSC will have to be recognized as a means to bring the world closer together,and promote an ideal of stewardship If this vision is promoted, the SSCwill most optimistically consign the geographical (and self limiting) desig-nations such as East and West and North and South, with all the attendantnotions of poverty, stagnation, and instability, to the dustbin of history

com-References

Chase-Dunn, C Global Formation: Structures of the World Economy

(Rowman & Littlefield, 1998)

Chase-Dunn, C and P Grimes, World systems analysis, Annual Review of

Sociology, Vol 21 (1995).

Chase-Dunn, C., Y Kawano and B Brewer, Trade globalization since 1795,

American Sociological Review, Vol 65 (2000).

Clingingsmith, D et al India’s Deindustrialization in the 18th and 19th

Centuries (Harvard University, 2005).

Daragahi, B Arab World Faces “Tsunami” of Protests, Change, Los

Angeles Times (30 January 2011).

Dunkley, G The Free Trade Adventure: The WTO, the Uruguay Round and

Globalism — A Critique (Zed Books, 2009).

Ferro, M Colonization: A Global History (Psychology Press, 1997) Frankel, E G Oil and Security: A World Beyond Petroleum (Springer,

Mallorquin, C “Ra´ul Prebich before the Ice Age”, in Ra´ ul Prebisch: Power, Principle, and the Ethics of Development, eds R Prebisch et al (2006),

pp 66–80

Mumford, L Technics and Civilization (University of Chicago Press, 2010) Prebisch, R The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principle

Problems (United Nations, 1962).

Turner, F Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness

(Rutgers University Press, 1980)

Part One Cooperation in the Global South: History and

Process

1

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How the South Was Born: Reflections

on the Geography and Culture

of Inequality ∗

Anouar Majid

Center for Global Humanities

University of New England, Maine, USA

On a clear day, you might stand on any elevated point in the Moroccancity of Tangier and have an unobstructed view of the Mediterranean, whichincludes a spectacular view of southern Spain There is an intriguing quality

to this sight because Morocco and Spain witnessed many scenes of culturalclashes and reversed fortunes Tangier’s memories are all the more intrigu-ing, of course, because the city’s history stretches back into antiquity

As a child, I believed that the legendary Greek demi-god Hercules cally separated Europe from Africa In fact, I believed that he broke it fairlynear the point where the respective land masses of Tangier in Morocco andTarifa in Spain almost meet I never doubted that, after this stupendousfeat, the powerful Hercules wanted solitude and rested in the caves on theAfrican side These land masses remained separate, that is, until the Euro-peans circumnavigated Africa and, so to speak, surrounded the world

physi-1 The Pre-Modern Muslim World Order

Morocco, which represented the African, Arab, and Islamic worlds, couldeasily have merged with the equally rich traditions of Spain Europe,however, thwarted any move toward the union, with its incessant wars of

∗Most of this chapter is an abbreviated version of “Other Worlds, New Muslims,”

a chapter in my book Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Andalusian World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp 21–52 I am

Post-grateful to Stanford University Press for permission to reprint

3

conquest and bloody religious conflicts While the distance between landmasses probably remained relatively constant through the centuries, thecultural chasms that these civilizations reflected grew increasingly wide.Although Europe and Africa could be closer culturally, an irony born ofnecessity lurks in the fact that, after more than 500 years, Spanish-speakingpeoples of the Americas embrace common cause with Muslims and Arabs.

As surprising as this trend appeared initially, it now seems inevitable, aseach culture becomes increasingly aware not only of its heritage vis-˜a-visSpain but also of its legacy in a Western-dominated world

With nations such as Brazil in the lead, these cousins and the culturesthey represent strive to overcome historical obstacles among themselves and

to enhance the autonomous traditions of tolerance and multiculturalismthat bring them closer together The year 1492 witnessed not only the end

of the Muslim Caliphate in Iberia but also the beginning of Spain’s rise as

a voracious state that consumed other lands and peoples

Irony abounds in the fact that Christopher Columbus’ (Cristobal Col´on)maiden voyage later that same year prepared the groundwork for Spain’sconquest of the Americas Through Columbus’ lenses, Spain’s conquest ofAmerica was a prelude to Europe’s capture of Jerusalem and a decisive vic-tory over Islam, a faith that seemed to empower the political South Europe’semergence as a conquering industrial and capitalist entity was, from theoutset, fueled by a strong animus toward Islam and its southern adherents.From these environs, Islamic nations governed the northern portions of WestAfrica and its influence stretched across the oceans to East Asia

Until the calendar year 1402, Islam had woven African and Asian nations

in a large and inclusive human, social, and commercial tapestry that sisted of a multitude of cultural and economic networks The economichistorian A G Hopkins speaks to this phenomenon, when he explains that:

con-Islam helped maintain the identity of members of a network orfirm who were scattered over a wide area, and often in foreigncountries; it enabled traders to recognize, and hence to dealreadily with, each other; and it provided moral and ritual sanc-tions to enforce a code of conduct which made trust and creditpossible It was through Islam that Dioula and Hausa merchantsestablished the commercial networks, or diasporas, which madethem so prominent and successful in long distance trade.1

1Hopkins (1973), pp 64–65 Mervyn Hiskett also wrote that by the year 1400 “itwould probably have been impossible to conduct business between the Sudan,North Africa and Egypt without substantial reliance upon the commercial prac-

tice of the Shari’a.” See Hiskett (1994), p 100 Slaves constituted a significant

portion of the trade

As if in a continuous sweep, the Arabic tongue and the Arabic scriptthat accompanied Islam spread literacy to levels that were impressive bymedieval standards; they laid the foundation for written languages, such asSwahili and Hausa Beyond that, Islam incorporated Africa into the world’smain trade routes and centers of civilization The historian Mervyn Hiskettnoted that:

strong similarity in content and format that exists across thewritten vernacular Islamic literatures of Africa testifies to thedepth to which Islam has penetrated into the life-style of thepeople, who still cherish these literatures to the present day;

and the remarkable evenness with which Islamic mainstreamculture has imposed itself upon what were originally diverseindigenous societies ranging from cattle nomads to primitiveagriculturalists and hunter-gatherers.2

From a functional view, Islam and the South were reluctant participants

in the multifaceted dynamics that led to Europe’s 16th-century monic status Spain herself was an integral part of this Islamic tapestry.However, Europe’s Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, coupledwith Spain’s happenstance discovery of the New World, when Columbusearnestly believed that his ship was India-bound, fatally wounded the estab-lished world order and launched a new predatory order, the likes of whichthe South never suffered There were several components to Spain’s globaldrive — commercial, military, ideological, and religious Ultimately, how-ever, each aspect merged into a dynamic whole that was designed to under-mine the South in every conceivable way

hege-2 The Bloody Quest For God, Gold, and Glory

The consequences of the new northern world order were, in many respects,like a wound to the human corpus As Granada fell in 1492, the stage wasset for a new crusade on non-European cultures Spain, the most Catholic ofEuropean countries, waged a two-front war against America’s indigenouspeople and North African Muslims, which set in motion an exploitationmodel that other European powers would eagerly embrace By mid-20thcentury, Muslims and Native Americans, Africans, Latin Americans, and

2

Hiskett (1994), p 178, 181

Asians stood relatively helpless before the gigantic European behemoththat reduced them to a condition that Franz Fanon could characterize, inhis 1961 allusion to Algerians, as the “wretched of the earth”.3

This world transformation remains pregnant with profound human andglobal implications A few seafaring European nations, such as England,Holland, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, reduced most of the globe to aslave plantation that was ruled — and exploited — at will However, this isnot a blanket condemnation of the European people Many humanitarianvoices condemned their leaders’ relentless cycles of injustices against theworld’s non-European people Yet, for all these isolated voices’ courage andself-sacrifice, Europe’s brutal domination still remains an incontrovertiblefact for non-Europeans

It may be that the rest of the world was hobbled by centuries of gious obscurantism, or that it failed to keep pace with the intellectualand industrial revolutions that Europe’s most ruling circles either toler-ated or accepted in the spirit of benign neglect Weakened by supersti-tions of all sorts, many non-European nations could not resist Europe’s

reli-exceptionalist march Instead of using newly acquired advantages to uplift

other nations, Europe capitalized on these asymmetrical relationships.While Europe resorted to violence and conquests, non-Europeans could

do precious little to protect themselves In confrontation with Europe’smultinational juggernaut, natives the world over often suffered slavery andgenocide

Whether out of romantic or fatalistic motives, some writers assume thatthe rise of Europe and its extended colonies in other continents was a by-

product of a violent Weltanschauung (worldview) that surfaced during the

Christian–Muslim religious wars From this perspective, Christian Europe’sdefeat of Islam inevitably entailed the end of a multicultural world orderand the rise of European supremacist ideologies That emergent world orderstill operates today, even though it is increasingly challenged by formerperipheral nations, including China, Brazil, and Turkey

Islam’s final Iberian defeat in 1492 not only weakened the culturalbonds that cemented a vast network of exchange stretching from Africa

to Asia, and through the Ottoman Empire to Asia Minor and Central

3

See Fanon (1991)

Europe but also inaugurated a half-millennium of tragedies for the world’s

non-European peoples In The Conquest of America, Tzvetan Todorov is

unambiguous about the significance of that fateful date: “We are all thedirect descendants of Columbus,” he writes, and “it is with him that our

genealogy begins, insofar as the word beginning has a meaning.”

Seemingly interested in gold or meeting the Grand Khan of China,Cristobal Col´on’s ultimate motive, as his journal reveals, was to recon-quer Jerusalem.4 J H Elliott safely speculated that “the close coincidencebetween the fall of Granada and the authorization of Columbus’s expedi-tion would suggest that the latter was Castile’s thank-offering and an act

of renewed dedication to the still unfinished war against the infidel”.5The indigenous people of the Canary Islands, the Guanjes or Guanches,precariously situated between the predatory North and the non-EuropeanGlobal South, were among the first to incur Spain’s crusading fury In view ofCol´on’s 10 October 1492 landing, the new continent would become the scene

of very bloody reprisals against heathen folk, whose slaughter would not ceaseuntil most had perished in “the greatest genocide in human history”.6The zeal to capture of souls and lands, however, merged with Eurocen-tric constructs of Christianity, which combined matters relating to purity

of faith and proper blood, racial, or color lines, into one indistinguishableideology The convenience of such blurred theological concepts increasedthe probability that Spain would deploy even mightier crusading ideologiesagainst the New World’s natives

Not surprisingly, America’s natives felt the instant brunt of being formed into Muslims In fact, Christian Spain’s quintessential notion ofdifference had always been Islam Semiotically and ideologically, the worldwould henceforth be divided into a pure, civilized, Christian, White, enlight-

trans-ened, and capitalist world, and a world of swarthy others who incarnated

the ghostly presence of Muslim infidels

The European discovery of America was a world-shattering event cisco L´opez de G´omara, author of Historia general de las Indias (1552),

Fran-exuded that Col´on’s chance discovery of the new world was the “greatestevent since the creation of the world (excluding the incarnation and death

of Him who created it).” An observer could easily suspect that G´omara