My Take | In a multipolar world, the ‘third pole’ is not Europe, but Global South

Yanis Varoufakis was late to the game. In a keynote speech given in Cuba early this year, the former Greek socialist finance minister called on the Global South to build a new non-aligned movement in the emerging multipolar world.

But already, the West’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and its new cold war against China have greatly accelerated this new, or rather renewed, non-alignment of developing nations. While those in charge in Washington and Brussels – and their echo-chamber press – still think what they say goes, or at least represents good world opinion against the bad propaganda of rogue nations, the rest of the world clearly doesn’t see things that way.

Developing countries, many of which have built substantial economic resources and political pull in recent decades on the world stage, have their own interests to defend, values to uphold and stories to tell. They choose their own paths and speak in their own voices; the West can no longer dictate the terms of global conflicts and controversies. The way Western politicians such as Emmanuel Macron and Kamala Harris were lectured to by heads of state in several African countries during recent visits gave the game away.

Macron is wrong. Europe will not be “the third pole” in this emerging multipolar world. The Ukraine war has made Europe even more dependent on the United States, economically and militarily. Rather, the third pole belongs to the Global South. Nothing has shown this more clearly than its reactions to the Ukraine war and the emerging West vs China cold war.

In early March last year, at an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly, 141 nations voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution against Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine”, 35 abstained and only five voted against.