The Notion of the Global South

Development & Dependency in the Third World

Racial violence and inequality is a major issue in the history and politics of the United States. This issue has attracted the attention of policymakers, politicians, scholars, researchers, and the general public as it continues to dominate public discourse. Anne Garland Maher published an article on this issue by examining the rights of African Americans using a tricontinental perspective. The Global South in the Belly of the Beast: Viewing African American Rights though a Tricontinental Lens, explores the influential role of the 1966 Tricontinental Conference alliance on current conceptualizations of global subalternity like the idea of the Global South. Mahler (2015) argues that the contemporary notion of the Global South is based on the ideologies of the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL), which was formed in 1966 at the Tricontinental Conference. This presentation examines this article in terms of its main points and how it addresses the topic. The discussion begins with a concise summary of the article, its major concepts and issues, and the social implications of the issue.

Concise Summary of the Article

Mahler (2015) wrote an article that examines the influential role of OSPAAAL on the contemporary notion of the Global South. OSPAAAL is an alliance formed at the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba in January 1966 to fight against imperialism. OSPAAAL was formed after delegates from liberation movements of eighty-two countries assembled. After its establishment, the alliance soon became the driving force of global political radicalism as well as the main instrument of radical cultural generation across the globe. The alliance has become an influential political movement whose ideologies have shaped modern conceptualizations of global subalternity like the growing notion of the Global South. OSPAAAL forms the ideological backbone of the Global South despite being the subject of a few scholarly studies. Mahler (2015) states that the Global South is a political consciousness emerging from the recognition by diverse peoples regarding their shared experience of the negative impacts of globalization. This consciousness emerged in the late 1970s with an emphasis on the European colonization experience. However, it has become characterized by debates regarding its relevance to people living within North America and Western Europe. Additionally, there are concerns on whether its use in reference to Latin America is simply part of an Orientalizing Western academy.

Mahler (2015) contends that OSPAAAL presents a theory of transnational subaltern political resistance through its connection with the African American Civil Rights Movement. This theory of political resistance is resurfacing in the modern notion of the Global South whose historical and ideological parameters are relatively vague. The main point of this article is that trincontinentalism is the ideological basis of the Global South. Therefore, the emergence of the Global South represents an effort to recoup an underlying ideological legacy that is seemingly lost or overlooked within the surrounding frame of postcolonial theory.

To support this view, Mahler (2015) states that tricontinentalism offers a long view of the Global South, which compels a close evaluation of foundational Cold War texts. Secondly, the Global South in tricontinentalism is not a mere by-product of postcolonial theory, but an obvious deviation from post coloniality whose main objective is to recover the basic principles of the tricontinental. This implies that the Global South would commit to express the ideological grounds for inclusion through which people view themselves as part of resistant, international subjectivity instead of circumstantial and attribute-based conditions. Third, the centrality of Latin America and African American intellectual traditions is explicitly acknowledged when recognizing tricontinentalism as a model. The recognition of these traditions, which have always been marginalized has significant implications for the Latin American and US academies.

Core Concepts and Social Implications of the Issue

The article by Mahler (2015) raises significant concepts and issues with social implications on the ideological basis of the Global South. One of the major concepts or issues emerging from this article is the post-national sense that acts as the foundation of tricontinentalism and the Global South. In this regard, the Global South is used to address people who are negatively affected by the modern capitalist globalization. As explicitly stated by Mahler (2015), the Global South has tricontinentalist roots, which emerged to fight against imperialism. Tricontinentalism was founded on a core critique of imperialism and racism by which it promotes a collective political ideology and collective cause. As part of its critique of imperialism and racism, tricontinentalism opposes global capitalist exploitation, which forms the basis of modern conceptualizations of global subalternity like the Global South. Tricontinentalist critique of global capitalist exploitation has influenced modern social movements that fight issues of racism and imperialism. Some of these movements that rely on the historical radical thought of tricontinentalism include the Global South, Black Lives Matter, and the World Social Forum. By using the ideologies of the Tricontinental Movement, contemporary conceptualizations of the global subalternity address some of the major issues that negatively affect populations across the globe relating to capitalism and racism.

Secondly, this article shows that the Global South tries to identify and theorize the current reality of transnational subaltern politics. Current subaltern studies have shifted their focus to the negative impacts of globalization from the experience of colonization. As a result, the Global South is emerging as a subaltern conceptualization to identify the common objectives and worldviews of transnational resistance movements. In attempts to identify and theorize the current reality of subaltern politics across national boundaries, the Global South identifies and recognizes shared conditions. These shared conditions across national boundaries are strongly linked to the common experiences of the negative impacts of globalization. While globalization has emerged as a key component of life in today’s society, it has generated negative impacts across national boundaries. Globalization has contributed to the increased connectivity of people and societies throughout the world. However, the increased connectivity has inadvertently promoted the exploitation of some societies and communities in the global political arena. Using this perspective, the Global South promotes a mutual worldview and ideology for resistance movements against imperialism, racism, and the negative impacts of globalization. A mutual worldview and ideology for resistance movements would be based on the idea of “exploited people of the world” (Mahler, 2015, p.112).

The third concept or issue emerging from this article is the role of tricontinentalism is the global struggle for racial justice. OSPAAAL, the alliance against imperialism that was formed at the Tricontinental Conference, worked with the African American Civil Rights Movement in the fight against racial violence and inequality. As the Tricontinental influences the Global South, it promotes new concepts in global resistance movements. These new concepts go beyond regional and ethnic identities to create a mutual worldview and ideology in which the fight against racism goes beyond national boundaries. The emergence of the new concepts implies that tricontinentalism has significantly abandoned its foundations in black internationalism. Therefore, instead of promoting black internationalism, contemporary conceptualizations of the global subaltenity that are influenced by tricontinentalism focus on a global struggle for racial justice and the fight against global capitalist exploitation. This implies that the global struggle for racial justice goes beyond regional and ethnic identities/boundaries.

As previously indicated, the concepts and issues raised in this article have social implications in relation to global politics. First, these concepts and issues raised in the article imply that recognition of the tricontinentalist foundation of the Global South has huge potential for opening communication between intellectual traditions. Intellectual traditions have usually been thwarted under the idea of postcolonialism. In essence, postcolonialism can no longer be utilized as the premise for ignoring intellectual traditions relating resistance movements and global politics. The consideration of current conceptualizations of the global subalternity like the Global South requires evaluating intellectual traditions that go beyond postcolonialism since they are shaped by tricontinentalism, which emphasizes shared experience of globalization.

Secondly, the article’s core concepts and issues promote a mutual view and effort in the fight against global capitalist exploitation and the quest for global racial justice. This implies that the consideration of the rights of African Americans should be viewed beyond regional and ethnic identities. In this regard, the fight against racial violence and inequality is not only an issue for African Americans but requires global cooperation and concerted efforts from international stakeholders. The need for global cooperation and concerted efforts in the quest for global racial justice is attributable to the mutual view and ideology that shapes modern resistance movements. From a political standpoint, racial inequality issues should be viewed using a global perspective instead of limiting it to regional and ethnic identities. This suggests that the quest for global racial justice has been relatively difficult to achieve because of limiting the fight to regional and ethnic identities. On the contrary, the adoption of a mutual view and ideology would enhance efforts and measures toward realizing global racial justice.