As speakers at the recent Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey sought to galvanise the international audience to respond to the crumbling of international institutions and two grinding wars, there were frequent references to the “Global South”.
The appeal for solidarity among the countries beyond the advanced industrial West is understandable. Trust in a global order dominated by the United States and Europe has eroded in the face of their wilful failure to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Now, the chaos and confusion wrought by the Trump administration’s tariff tantrums have forced even friends of the US to rethink their ties.
US-dominated international institutions such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization have been a disappointment. Many countries on the periphery have long dreamt of a new order that is fairer to what has been accurately termed the “majority world”. That spirit resulted in the Non-Aligned Movement, which unfortunately petered out after the end of the Cold War and the embrace of neoliberal pro-market reforms by most countries.
The Global South is now a popular, affirming self-image and a rallying cry for nations once called the Third World or least developed countries (LDCs). The term originates from the fact that the US and Europe are in higher latitudes, while the nations they lorded over were mostly to their south. Unlike the LDC label, Global South is often worn as a badge of pride, alluding to cultures to be proud of, and an unyielding determination to chart one’s own course.
The Antalya forum last weekend was a gathering of more than 6,000 participants mostly from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the less wealthy countries of Europe. Several panels emphasised the need to meaningfully reform the membership of the UN Security Council beyond the five current permanent members and to drastically change the rules of the General Assembly itself.
A UN Security Council meeting during the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly last year. Photo: dpa
With the institution marking its 80th year this October, the UN itself has a reform agenda filled with many ideas, but just which will get approved and implemented remains to be seen.
Zuraidah supervises the publication’s Hong Kong, Asia and international coverage as well as its photo, graphics and Young Post desks. She also oversees This Week in Asia, an award-winning Sunday current affairs magazine.
Zuraidah was previously the Deputy Editor of Singapore’s largest English-language daily, The Straits Times.
Among the books Zuraidah has published are Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going (Straits Times Press, 2011), a monograph on the Opposition in the Singapore Chronicles series (Institute of Policy Studies, 2017) and a co-edited compendium of reports on Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, Rebel City: Hong Kong’s Year of Water and Fire (SCMP Publishers, 2020). Her latest book project is Post Portraits – Hong Kong’s 25 years of change through the lens of the South China Morning Post (SCMP Publishers, 2023).
