by BOAVENTURA DE SOUSA SANTOS
The original non-alignment movement occured in 1961 following the Bandung Conference (Indonesia) held in 1955, which was attended by 29 countries, almost all of which had recently been liberated from European colonialism. They accounted for 54% of the world’s population, but their weight in the world economy was almost nil.
In 1955, non-alignment meant wanting to decide on the national development model without having to adhere to either of the two rival models in force at the time: the communist Soviet bloc and the capitalist Western bloc. The concept of the Third World stems from this aspiration. The rivalries between them were beginning to crystallize in the Cold War. The differences between the two models were so great that they pointed to two civilizational models. In fact, the idea of the “new man” had emerged since the beginning of the 20th century in Europe as a new civilizing idea, both in the Soviet version and in the fascist and Nazi versions, and pointed to something ideologically very different from the capitalist norm which, after 1918, was increasingly dictated by the USA. The differences between the participants are well known. The use of force and war to resolve conflicts, which had dominated international politics since the 19th century, was the most unanimous issue. The Soviet bloc had a comparative advantage in that, since the Congress of the Peoples of the East held in Baku (Azerbaijan) in 1920, it had recognized the role of colonial liberation movements in the struggle against capitalism and imperialism. But, as S. Gopal points out, non-alignment was above all a state of mind, the spirit of Bandung. African-American journalist Richard Wright, who was present in Bandung, describes the atmosphere in Bandung thus:
“Only brown, black and yellow men who had long been made agonizingly self-conscious, under the rigors of colonial rule, of their race and their religion could have felt the need for such a meeting. There was something extra-political, extra-social, almost extra-human about it; it smacked of tidal waves, of natural forces. And the call for the meeting had not been sounded in terms of ideology. The agenda and the subject matter had been written for centuries in the blood and bones of the participants. The conditions under which these men had lived had become their tradition, their culture, their raison d’être”.
The then young countries of what is now known as the global South wanted to assert their national interests through cooperation in order to focus on them and not on the interests dictated to them by the global North. These interests included anti-colonialism, anti-racism, getting out from underdevelopment, and expanding areas of peace.
From the outset, the Non-Aligned Movement was contested by the US, since the ideas of neutrality, neutralism or non-alignment were anathema to the US, while the USSR was pushing to intensify its anti-imperialist orientation. As a result, disagreements grew and the movement lost relevance, which worsened with the end of the Cold War.
In 2024, the geopolitical and economic situation in the world is very different from 1955. What sense does it make today to talk about non-alignment? Non-alignment between what and for what? A brief overview of the current geopolitical situation will help us define the possible political content of non-alignment. I anticipate that the new non-alignment is as necessary today as it was in 1955, albeit with very different political and ideological content. I distinguish between weak non-alignment and strong non-alignment.
The geopolitical context
We live in a multipolar (or even bipolar) world, although very different from the world in 1955. Today, the two poles of geopolitical attraction are the US and China and the rivalries between them are intensifying. A new Cold War is emerging, not at all like the one that existed between the Soviet Union and the USA. In this regard, 1955 and 2024 are distinct in three main ways.
1.While the differences between the two poles were enormous in 1955, one communist and the other capitalist, to the point of pointing to different civilizational options, today these differences are much smaller. It’s true that the speeches and self-description of the regimes point to very different realities, but in reality the differences are considerably less. It is enough to remember that until very recently China was considered a strategic partner of the US, something that was never the case with the Soviet Union. Although there is debate about the nature of China’s economic regime (communism, socialism, state capitalism?), China’s evolution over the last thirty years and the role it has played in the globalization of the economy make it increasingly clear that we are dealing with two variants of the same capitalist model: on the one hand, multinational capitalism with globalized financial capital (USA) and, on the other, state capitalism with state control of the financial sector (China). Seen from this perspective, the two systems have more in common than you might think. The differences are important, but they occur within the same model of capitalist economic development. The socialist option as it was envisioned in 1955 has disappeared. And with it, its opposite has also disappeared from the economic lexicon: today we don’t speak of capitalism, but of market economy, as if the markets, which have always existed, had always been capitalist.
2.The second difference from 1955 is that at that time there was a radical difference between democratic countries (because they were multi-party) and autocratic countries (because they were one-party), even though the latter claimed to be another kind of democracy: popular democracy, developmental democracy. Today, the differences are much more tenuous given the degradation of liberal democracies over the last thirty years. It’s no stretch to say that while China is a one-party autocracy, the US is a two-party autocracy. In fact, this was stated with extraordinary foresight by President Julius Nyerere in 1991: “The United States is a democracy by some definition and not by others. It’s a plutocracy, but the native gets the vote; so it’s a democracy! But the United States is very lucky. There are two parties; but they’re really one party! Both parties agree on the basic national objectives. Internally, both of them are highly capitalist. Externally, both of them are imperialist. So, their policies don’t differ very much. It was not Kennedy who planned the Bay of Pigs. It was planned by Eisenhower and Kennedy carried it out, that is, tried to carry it out. So they basically agree.” Obviously, the differences are significant, especially on the domestic front, but in terms of geopolitics they translate into the difference between a monolithic autocracy and a pluralist autocracy.
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