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Fostering inter-state developmental cooperation remaining a challenge for South
Accordingly, the South would need to consider it compulsory to think and act on these questions cooperatively, to the extent possible, if the best interests of their peoples are to be served.
The latter consideration, needless to say, is of paramount importance. Countries of the South would gain virtually nothing by disregarding the cardinal importance of empowering their peoples. Such empowerment derives mainly through democratic development, which essentially refers to the combining of economic growth with re-distributive justice.
Besides, Southern countries would need to steer clear of strong military links in particular with the foremost powers of the East and West, which tend to compromise their impartiality in dealing the world’s principal power centres.
As matters stand, the South is in no position to achieve these aims in the short and medium terms. They are far from coming together and perceiving even a semblance of a possibility of thinking and acting consensually on the outlined issues. Their differences in quite a few issue areas are great and insurmountable to a considerable degree.
Accordingly, the South would need to first think in terms of coming together as a collectivity and discussing the challenges facing it. This calls for visionary and far-sighted thinking on the part of Southern political leaders, policymakers and other sections that matter in the development process.
It is not in the least far-fetched to call for the re-emergence of political leaders of the stature of, for instance, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, who dared to envision a future wherein the developing world would be thinking and acting consensually to further its best interests, free of external interference. Cynicism and skepticism notwithstanding, Non-alignment remains relevant.
Of course, it is some time since the Cold War, in the traditional sense, ceased to exist, thereby prompting the belief in some quarters that Non-alignment is no longer of any importance or applicable in the contemporary world, but the fact that Southern peoples, by and large, are remaining disempowered, should prompt the global South to collectively re-examine the relevance of Non-aligned principles. Current realities call for a creative re-interpretation of Non-alignment, if development in the truest sense is to be initiated.
However, the temptation for Southern ruling elites to side with this or that big power and its alliances is great. The succumbing to this temptation by power elites of the South for short term gain eventually rendered Non-alignment almost ineffective. However, this tendency does in no way invalidate the principle of Non-alignment and its policy implications.
Looking back over the decades, it could be said that the tendency on the part of those states at the helm of the Non-aligned Movement to align with this or that major power of the East, had the effect of compromising the integrity and independence of NAM. It is small wonder that the West came to see NAM as some kind of adjunct of communism. To the extent to which this perception prevailed, to the same extent was NAM rendered weak.
However, what was expected of NAM was the establishment of an equidistance between it and the East and the West. Ideally, in other words, NAM should have been seen as steering clear of capitalism and communism and their main advocates. This was not to be and while ruling elites of the South empowered themselves through these alliances, the opposite was true of the wider publics.
Sri Lanka needs to think on these things as it makes a bid to join BRICS, seen as the Eastern foil for the G7. While it goes without saying that small states, such as Sri Lanka, need to interact pragmatically with the international community and should shelve ideological blinkers in the process, such states need to bear in mind that it’s their people’s best interests that matter most.
The fact that Sri Lanka has been remaining mired in steep and widespread poverty over the decades, besides being rendered bankrupt by its ruling elites, establishes the fundamentally erroneous nature of the country’s internal and external policies. It is clear that while such policies have enabled a microscopic minority in the country to flourish over the years, the people as such have been disempowered. Thus, exacting accountability by rulers for ruinous governance is central to Sri Lanka’s wellbeing and democratization, as we go forward.
Besides, these realties prove that the alignment of Sri Lankan governments over the years with this or that big power, while duplicitously proclaiming Non-alignment, has only led it along a ruinous path of under-development.
Accordingly, the acquiring of BRICS membership by Sri Lanka and other small states is perfectly acceptable as long it is coupled with genuine Non-alignment. These countries should not be seen as siding with Eastern powers at the cost of their legitimate links with the Western bloc, since both East and West are needed for small countries’ development. The exercising of suzerainty over Sri Lanka by Eastern or Western powers needs to be unconditionally eschewed.
Meanwhile, intra-South developmental cooperation must be speeded-up and sustained. The World Bank has highlighted some instances of such cooperation in South Asia in a recent report and this is the way to go for the rest of the South as well. Some areas of cooperation which have yielded positive results are; the containment of air pollution through cooperative efforts among Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Pakistan, South Asian women’s increasing participation in regional development, addressing of climate risks through regional cooperation in meteorological and hydrological services and the exporting by Nepal of hydroelectricity to Bangladesh through the Indian grid (See page 3 of The Island of January 7th, 2025).
The above projects could be defined as win-win solutions for almost the whole of South Asia, since the peoples of the region are ultimately standing to gain by them. What is needed is South-South cooperation of this kind that would gradually prove beneficial for the masses of the region and not money-gobbling prestige projects that would in all probability enrich only the ruling strata of the South.