The process of separating the globe into North and South sections according to power and resources began to be debated as early as in the mid-1970s. The ‘North’ was described as being industrial, democratic, militarily more powerful, having a higher standard of living combined with massive accumulation of wealth. Geographically, the idea of the ‘Global North’ refers to the Northern European countries and North America, including the United States and Canada.

In contrast, the ‘Global South’ refers to lands of Asia, Africa, Middle East and South America where countries find themselves mostly agrarian and trying to modernize, with weaker democracies, smaller militaries, fiscal mismanagement and enormous challenges with equity. They have generally lower standards of living accompanied with high rates of public health concerns.

In simple terms, the North colonized and the South was colonized. The North experienced Enlightenment; the South was left behind and ignored in the Enlightenment. At this point, in spite of the Global North’s power and domination over previous centuries, the Global South has made great strides in its own growth and independence. And yet, it still needs to be empowered by its own and international intelligentsia to further democratize, respect human and gender rights, demilitarize and bring its rich cultural, literary and philosophical past to the surface. In other words, it is time to expand Enlightenment ideals to the South. The Southern Enlightenment is a prerequisite for higher standard of living, better health care, a deeper understanding of human and animal rights, and lives free of war. The Enlightenment of the Southern countries, despite the differences among all these countries’ cultural histories, will pave the way for a fuller, more comprehensive and global Enlightenment, and sets the stage for a World Parliament that would operate equitably and with unprejudiced representations.

The history of the 20th century contains the independence movements of the countries of the South which were colonized by the Northern colonial powers such as Britain and France. But the South continued to remain a negligibly important hemisphere on many levels. It was during the Cold War that the South was given the derogatory designation of ‘Third World Countries’, a term coined in 1952 by the French demographer, Alfred Sauvy. This term implied that these countries, which were not members of the NATO or the Warsaw military Pacts (from the First and Second Worlds), were lower-tier countries, and consequently unimportant. Their poverty was not surprising, and was perhaps subconsciously even considered inevitable or ‘normal’ due to centuries of ingrained prejudice. The rich expansionist countries of the North blatantly looked down on these ex-colonies as subordinate client countries, even if they were no longer formally the colonizers. The disparity and domination strengthened when the financial and military power of the North, led by the US, continued selling arms to solidify the Northern, specifically the Western, hegemony over the South. That being said, in the post-colonial period the distinction between North and South has not always been so clear-cut. For example, the Russian and Chinese hegemonial haphazard ambitions lie between the drive for Southern autocracy and the Northern attitude of superiority. It is as if these two powerful countries cannot be categorized as being Northern or Southern.

By the 1970s, the divisions between North and South epitomized the disparity between the prosperous and privileged lifestyles of the Northern countries and the impoverished South. This particular geographical division drew the attention of Willy Brandt, Nobel Laureate and Chancellor of former West Germany in the 1970s. He was not interested in the customary bilateral or multilateral politically cosmetic treaties between Northern/Western nations and developing countries, but rather in finding solutions between communities, proposing a sustainable peace and justice around the globe. Brandt’s groundbreaking approach to uplift the South opened the historical flood gate of debates about the Northern domination of the world and the suffering of the subjugated South.

In the late 1970s, he established a critical commission (the Brandt Commission) to study the disparity between North and South. His commission studied the South from the perspective of poverty, diseases, mortality, political dictatorship, gender equality and human rights among crucial issues which had been ignored by the North. This clear-eyed and unflinching investigation resulted in a full report in 1980, which Brandt eventually turned into a book entitled North-South: A Program for Survival. He argued against the drastic economic disparities between the Global North and the Global South, and proposed cooperative ways to bridge this gap. His North-South initiative was a pioneering endeavor which tried to usher us into the new century by paying attention to equity, justice and peace in the Global South.

Despite the progress made in the South in improving vaccination rates, electricity availability, communication systems, and access to education, today, almost 50 years later, there are still enormous gaps and uneven progress, as poverty, maternal and child-mortality, unemployment, instability, fleeing refugees, and food security loom larger than ever before. Two phenomena have contributed to the delay in reform and development, namely, consumer capitalism and militarism. Both have been engineered to make profit and dominate others rather than achieve equity, justice and peace. The Southern countries often borrow money from the IMF and the World Bank, for which they must pay high interest. As a result, paradoxically, countries often have to cut back on health, education and welfare programs.

Despite the North’s role in creating massive global inequity, Southern liberation from domination will only become a reality when the South can itself confront its own complex, age-old religious and pyramidal feudal systems. Many of these atavistic communities of the South in modern times have stagnated while trying to democratize their systems. Part of the complexity in the stagnation of the South arises from subconscious memories of thousands of years of hierarchical and patriarchal societies built upon hundreds of invented myths and religions that have become part of the traditional culture and social psychology. There are many opinions and claims over the truth and even disputes over territories. These millennial myths and religions have become deeply ingrained in the cultures and psyches of the people of the South, often inherently clashing with modernity.

They have often misled themselves and their nations that modernization is one and the same thing as modernity, or modern global thinking. Nice buildings, smooth roads, fancy shopping centers, and modern militaries give the deceptive appearance of progress toward the ultimate goal. But in fact, gender equality, human rights, animal rights, empathetic sense of other, environmental protection, justice for all and democracy should be the highest goals.

It is helpful to remember that the Southern hemisphere was the birthplace of humanity and the origin of the earliest human civilizations. Consider the myriad architectural, mathematical, medical, literary, scientific, artistic and cultural achievements of the many great Southern civilizations including the Mesopotamians, Incas, Aztecs, Egyptians, Abyssinian, Amazigh, Chinese, Axumites, Central Asians, Persians, Indians, and many more. On one hand, the South has the wisdom and past cultural achievements to contribute to and accomplish the Southern Enlightenment, while on the other the convoluted, religious, tribal and traditional thinking and behaviors have limited attainment of a general consensus for democracy and progress.

The historical legacy of the South is indisputable but the hurdles of Southern Enlightenment can conceptually be stated as: 1. The harsh effects of North-South split due to sociocultural differences, 2. Domination of North over South, and 3. Taking the hurdle down to a national level, that there are mini North-South splits within countries. These mini North-South splits are splits between the elites (so to speak North) regardless of their geographical or national origin, and the poor (so to speak South). This has created a new international ‘caste system’, in the words of the African-American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson in her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020). Not only the dignity of the people of the South has been bruised in an emergent international caste system by living under some form of imperialist military domination, but also, according to Wilkerson, there is a domestic caste system as well. The roots of domestic caste in the South lie in the rich and expansionist classes. In today’s reality, this fact cannot be ignored that the nature of domination is shifting from national to the caste system whose rulers are the rich people and the rich corporations.

In Wilkerson’s approach, we can see that the geographical North and South distinction between countries blurs, and those divisions in fact occur globally within countries, according to power and resources. In other words, each country has also its own North and South, its castes/elites who are self-proclaimed decision-makers for the defenseless consumers.

Therefore, at this point, perhaps the South needs to move on to deal with all the three levels of the structural problem which prevents them from achieving their Enlightenment. It behooves us and the literati of the South to acknowledge the historical and cultural differences between North and South; the continuing domination of North over South; and the domestic caste system ruling and exploiting their country. In the last instance, the South needs to also move past thinking that only colonial power and ‘white supremacy’ are responsible for the current injustices in their individual countries and around the globe. It is in current global settings, the powerful and dominant ‘caste,’ the rich with bigger tools and bigger guns, whether black, Asian, white or brown people, who are the exploiters.

The hurdle of Southern Enlightenment demands a global awareness and a collaborative movement to support weaker and poorer nations as well as weaker and poorer people. The Global peace is only possible by demilitarizing both North and South, elevating the South to the level of the North and making our world a single planetary human family in our Solar System– a genuine Planetary Enlightenment.

North-South Union: A Safe Passage Toward Global Enlightenment

Despite progress in many areas, greed and warmongering have often distracted the world, and the ideals of a North-South collaboration in which wealth and resources are shared for an absolutely humane world are just as relevant and necessary as ever. We need to shift to solutions rather than continue our ranting and raving. The solution to the 500-year-old rift between the Global North and South seems almost impossible due to power politics, greed and militarization. In failing to achieve the solutions of North-South as proposed by the Brandt Commission, the responsibility is ever greater and the burden of addressing and fixing it in our new century is now ours.

The Global Enlightenment entails two large categories of paradigm shift: 1. The North must abandon its greed for wealth and domination. The North has to figure out how to use its wealth in more creative ways to benefit everyone. 2. The South must abandon its military extravaganza and dictatorship, corruption, and pseudo-feudalism. The South must also draw a border between tradition, or religion and the rational democracy for the common good of all citizens.

The unity of North-South also requires a new individual worldview transcending nationalism and racism, and a new world order based on justice and collaboration. Any ideal of global or universal does not imply that everyone and every country must think and behave the same. However, it does mean that they have to uphold the same key values.  These norms are instead comprised of Human Rights, Gender Equality, Freedom of Speech and Press, Environmental and Animal Protection, and Democratic Transparency. These values and norms are NOT up for negotiation or claims of relativity because of cultural or religious differences. The aim is to universalize the best and most mature practices, whether from the North or the South. The Second Enlightenment is an invitation to move away from an archaic hierarchical-pyramidal model into an egalitarian system on a global level. The today’s Enlighteners are equally from all nations and all classes of society around the world.

The first Enlightenment was the first step, but its impact was geographically and socially limited. This is why the incorporation of the global South in a New Enlightenment, for a truly Global Enlightenment, will inevitably be one of the greatest achievements of humanity since Homo sapiens left Africa seventy thousand years ago. The path is open; it only awaits its wayfarers and brave iconoclastic thinkers to take the first steps.

(photo attribution © rmagfx, 123RF Free Images )