Africa, Asia must push for a new world order

Lazarus Sauti

“This world is not democratic at all. The world is organised by the war economy and the war culture,” Eduardo Galeano, the ‘poet laureate of the anti-globalisation movement’, said in 2013.

Without taking anything from Galeano’s quote, the world is still undergoing an unpredictable state of disorder.

Imperialism, colonialism, war, exploitation, injustice as well as unfairness continue to complicate the contemporary world political economic space.

Sadly, this state of disorder affects Africa, Asia, and Latin America in addition to other developing regions.

These regions enjoy the biggest chunk in terms of numerical superiority in the world, but they are far behind the so-called ‘Western super powers’ in the international geopolitical system.

Because of this and other reasons, African Union and the Southern African Development Community chair, President Robert Mugabe, believes that African and Asian countries must harness their numerical superiority at multilateral level to push for reforms of the United Nations system.

Officially opening the Asia-Africa Commemoration Conference at the Jakarta Convention Centre in Indonesia recently, the Zimbabwean leader added that Africa and Asia are a formidable force in numerical terms at a multilateral level, but that numerical strength counts for little when it comes to the running and control of the United Nations system.

Together they constitute 75 per cent of the global population. This means that out of the 192 United Nations member-states, Africa and Asia constitute 107, fifty-four for Africa and 53 for Asia, but the voice of only five countries carried weight.

“In the United Nations, the voice of the five permanent members of the Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – carries more weight than that of the rest of us, the majority.

“The United Nations Security Council is not representative of the geo-political realities of the modern world,” noted President Mugabe.

True to his affirmations, Africa and Latin America, with 54 and 33 member-states respectively, also lack a permanent seat on the Council, while Europe with 52 member-states is overrepresented by way of three permanent seats and Asia is underrepresented amid its single seat.

Africa’s position, on the contrary, is simple.

The continent wants at least two permanent seats, with veto power, and five non-permanent seats  on the Security Council with the African Union choosing the countries to occupy the seats.

Sadly, Asia, with China as its only representative, does not have a unified voice with several leading states angling for membership.

This, according to President Mugabe, therefore, calls for a unity not only among Asian nations, but Africa and Latin America as well to push for a new world order: a new era – freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace.

“We must mobilise for a new world order, and one of the essential ingredients in doing so will be strengthening of our unity in continuing to fight for a United Nations that recognises all its members as equal not only in terms of the Charter, but more crucially in practice,” explained President Mugabe.

Phebion Mandari Chingwaru, a researcher in the field of politics and public administration, is of the same minds.

“There is no way Africa, Asia and Latin America can remain underrepresented when their citizens continue to suffer injustices perpetrated by the Western line; seriously, these regions cannot have their affairs debated as well as determined by outside forces when they can represent themselves,” he noted.

Chinese president Xi Jinping also believes in a new world order.

“A new type of international relations in needed to encourage co-operation between African and Asian nations as well as to challenge imbalances in the international system,” affirmed President Jinping.

During the Asia-Africa Commemoration Conference, Indonesian President Joko Wido Widodo also describes the United Nations system as powerless to resolve problems of global imbalances and injustices.

He said the global financial architecture reflects Western hegemony with the United States choosing the president of the World Bank while Europe picks the boss of the International Monetary Fund.

Further, President Widodo noted that those who still insisted that global economic problems can only be solved through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank are clinging to ‘obsolete ideas’.

“I am of the opinion that the fate of the global economy should not only be left to those three financial institutions.

“There needs to be change.

“It is imperative that we build a new international economic order that is open to new emerging economic powers,” he said.

Galeano agreed: “This world is not democratic at all. The most powerful institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, belong to three or four countries. The others are watching.”

Africa and Asia must, therefore, not distance themselves, but stand together against the domination of the five ‘great powers considered the victors of the second world war – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States’ to avoid unfairness and global imbalances”.

Teymoor Nabili, a Singapore-based journalist and commentator concurs, saying the international economic style is no longer relevant. Therefore, developing regions should push for a new world order.

“The existing global financial architecture, devised 50 years ago when no alternatives existed and all were happy to concede leadership (and benefits) to Washington, is no longer fit for purpose.

“Not only are its institutions – the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank thoroughly dominated by the United States.

“These institutions impose a coercive and ideologically driven agenda on developing countries that can do harm than good.

“Not to mention the fact they simply do not have the capacity to handle emerging Asia development needs,” noted Nabili, adding that developing nations need to push for reforms if the world is to be democratic.

Like President Mugabe, Widodo and Jinping, Nabili believes that an equal world for all can be realised, but only if Africa, Asia and Latin America are motivated to act now and not tomorrow to create a new world order based on a just, fair, peaceful as well as democratic culture and civilisation.