Below are found posts that form preliminary reflections on the Third World:
“A blog from the Third World perspective” 6/9/2013;
“What is the Third World?” 7/16/2013;
“What is the Third World Revolution?” 7/17/2013;
“What is the Third World perspective?” 7/18/2013;
“Third World anti-neocolonial movement” 7/19/2013;
“Obstacles to Third World movements” 7/22/2013;
“Revolutionary processes” 7/23/2013;
“Third World and Marxism-Leninism” 7/24/2013.
The posts were published from June 9 to July 24, 2013, when the blog was launched. They seek to introduce the reader to the term “Third World,” which was established as an international political project by charismatic leaders from Latin America, Africa and Asia during the 1950s and 1960s, who were seeking to develop an alternative to the neocolonial world-system headed by the United States as well as the socialist world-system led by the Soviet Union. As Vijay Prashad has written:
“A blog from the Third World perspective” 6/9/2013;
“What is the Third World?” 7/16/2013;
“What is the Third World Revolution?” 7/17/2013;
“What is the Third World perspective?” 7/18/2013;
“Third World anti-neocolonial movement” 7/19/2013;
“Obstacles to Third World movements” 7/22/2013;
“Revolutionary processes” 7/23/2013;
“Third World and Marxism-Leninism” 7/24/2013.
The posts were published from June 9 to July 24, 2013, when the blog was launched. They seek to introduce the reader to the term “Third World,” which was established as an international political project by charismatic leaders from Latin America, Africa and Asia during the 1950s and 1960s, who were seeking to develop an alternative to the neocolonial world-system headed by the United States as well as the socialist world-system led by the Soviet Union. As Vijay Prashad has written:
The Third World was not a place. It was a project. During the seemingly interminable battles against colonialism, the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America dreamed of a new world. They longed for dignity above all else, but also the basic necessities of life (land, peace, and freedom). They assembled their grievances and aspirations into various kinds of organizations, where their leadership then formulated a platform of demands. These leaders, whether India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, or Cuba’s Fidel Castro, met in a series of gatherings during the middle decades of the twentieth century. In Bandung (1955), Havana (1966), and elsewhere, these leaders created an ideology and a set of institutions to bear the hopes of their populations. The “Third World” comprised these hopes and the institutions produced to carry them forward (Prashad 2007:xv).
As a political project born in opposition to European colonial domination and to the peripheralization of the once-autonomous economies of the conquered regions, the Third World envisioned the formation of independent and sovereign nations. It thus was above all a project of national liberation from imperialism and neocolonialism. But unlike European nationalism, Third World nationalism was and is an internationalist nationalism, for from the vantage point of the colonial/neocolonial situation, the need for solidarity and cooperation in order to create a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system is clearly visible.
Although in his 2007 book, Vijay Prashad describes the Third World as a project that has died, I maintain that the renewal of the Third World project since 1995 is the most significant aspect of present global dynamics. It can be said that the Third World project died in the 1980s and early 1990s, assassinated by the unconscionable aggressiveness of the West and the internal class contradictions of the project itself. But it has been born again, resurrected by the tremendous thirst of the peoples of the world for social justice, the capacity of a new generation of charismatic leaders to denounce the barbarity and the injustice of the global neoliberal project, and the unsustainability of a world-system that does not know how to expand except through domination and exploitation. The Third World project of Nkrumah, Nyerere and Fidel, renewed by Chávez, Evo and Correa, remains the only viable alternative for humanity to chaos, barbarism and fascism.
The posts below are placed in chronological order. The date of publication is found at the beginning of the text for each post. Please ignore the dates immediate below the post title, inasmuch as these are false dates entered to induce the system to present the posts in chronological order, overcoming its rule to present them in reverse chronological order.
The first post, “A blog from the Third World perspective,” was published on June 9, 2013.
Reference
Prashad, Vijay. 2007. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. New York: The New Press.
Although in his 2007 book, Vijay Prashad describes the Third World as a project that has died, I maintain that the renewal of the Third World project since 1995 is the most significant aspect of present global dynamics. It can be said that the Third World project died in the 1980s and early 1990s, assassinated by the unconscionable aggressiveness of the West and the internal class contradictions of the project itself. But it has been born again, resurrected by the tremendous thirst of the peoples of the world for social justice, the capacity of a new generation of charismatic leaders to denounce the barbarity and the injustice of the global neoliberal project, and the unsustainability of a world-system that does not know how to expand except through domination and exploitation. The Third World project of Nkrumah, Nyerere and Fidel, renewed by Chávez, Evo and Correa, remains the only viable alternative for humanity to chaos, barbarism and fascism.
The posts below are placed in chronological order. The date of publication is found at the beginning of the text for each post. Please ignore the dates immediate below the post title, inasmuch as these are false dates entered to induce the system to present the posts in chronological order, overcoming its rule to present them in reverse chronological order.
The first post, “A blog from the Third World perspective,” was published on June 9, 2013.
Reference
Prashad, Vijay. 2007. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. New York: The New Press.
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