If you have been wondering about the main reason behind President Barack Obama's 10-day visit to Asian countries including India, Indonesia and South Korea, the answer is the rising concern among Western states regarding the growing power of China and particularly her efforts to rally third world countries to the cause of a "Third World Order" as a counterbalance to the "New World Order" championed by the United States of America.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the Berlin Wall, this New World Order led by the United States had been gradually taking shape unchallenged. It had been gradually gaining worldwide acceptance due primarily to the dominance of Western economies augmented by Western and particularly U.S. military superiority. While Western militaries have been at the forefront of paving the way for the establishment of a more cooperative and amiable political order, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have been expanding their economic outreach to facilitate the expected mergers of the global diverse economies. However, despite the display of confidence in the ultimate triumph of the New World Order, it appears that there will be a challenge to its supremacy by a new order championed mostly by Third World countries.
This alternative order is called the "Third World Order" and is advocated and supported by countries as diverse as China, Libya, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Iran. What is the Third World Order, you may ask? It is a proposed order to economically unify Third World countries to prevent their absorption into the Western-dominated global economy. The Third World Order is not a new idea but is in many respects a continuation of the anti-imperialist and anti-Western sentiments that originated during the periods of colonialism and continued through post-colonialism and neocolonialism.
If you have been wondering about the reasons behind the frequent visits to Africa by Chinese Premier Hu Jintao or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the numerous visits to Iran and Libya by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, you now know the answer. Along with the immediate objectives of expanding the economic cooperation between their respective countries, they are also drawing plans to enhance the prospects and the appeal of the Third World Order in order to increase the membership of their alliance. These leaders' speeches at the United Nations not only betray semblances of their Third World ideology but also portray a rarely seen confidence in the righteousness of their cause. While Ahmadinejad challenges the moral premises of the New World Order, Hugo Chavez warned in 2006 against a possible world calamity that can occur if plans for world economic hegemony by Western States come to pass.
Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi in his U.N. speech in 2009 not only accused the United Nations and the U.N. Security Council of doing the bidding of the Western States, but went as far as to demand the relocation of the entire United Nations from New York to a Third World country.
So now if you still think that the New World Order has the world arena all to itself, think again. It looks like the gauntlet that was thrown down by the Western powers at the feet of the former Soviet bloc has been picked up by another and unexpected challenger after all. The global transition from two superpowers to a lone superpower that was anticipated to have a smooth ride to world supremacy will still have to contend with bumps and potholes on the road to world domination.
Who could have imagined that a world that not that long ago resigned to the reality of an overreaching hegemonic unipolar system will now face the reality of a multipolar system championed by countries whose political, economic and social structures are in many ways a world apart, yet appear to unite around a world vision all their own?
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Fathi El-Shihibi is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Northeastern University.
