In modern International Relations, the terms Global North and
Global South have become common defining features such that the Global North
inflicted insurmountable Gordian knots in global political interdependence.
The major problems of the Global South evolved 350 years ago as a result of
subjugation by the rise of powerful European powers who were driven by the urge
to colonize indigenous communities that were scattered all over the world.
Despite decolonization getting off the ground after WWII, a web
of new nations emerged even though the legacy of colonialism continued to ravage the struggling, rising up nations in the Global South especially
those within the African continent and some parts of Asia. With the escalation
of the Cold War, the terminology Third World became the common name for those
nations that regained independence while First World nations was in reference to
North America, Europe, and Japan who were more technologically and industrially
advanced than the Soviet Union and its satellite states who were designated
Second World powers. I’ve used the terminology ‘regained independence’ for
those colonized nations because they have been independent long before the
first surge of European powers like Portugal, Holland, Spain, Britain, and
France started their expansionist melodramatic aims
To add insult to injury, those Global South nations suffered
further demotion by being degraded to the category of the less-developed of the
least-developed countries. However, modern scholars prefer the use of Global
North and Global South instead of the former degrading epithets. The estimated
population of the Global South is 85% with a staggering 20% global income
generation. Surprisingly, the humiliating income disparity is related to the
negative impact of neocolonialism that is a hoodoo to nation’s having the will
to prosper. It was during the early fifteenth century when the first wave of
European migrants started seafaring in search of new raw materials from new
territories that they renamed colonies. The surge in ocean mercantilism
continued until its demise in the eighteenth century when former colonies proclaimed independence
and the global economic theories known as laissez-faire and liberal economics starting
flourishing on a grand scale.
The second wave of European global movement plying world oceans
continued until the 1870s, however, it was after the end of WWI when Europe and
the United States and Japan commenced new territorial claims, to an extent that
even former independent states and China became fragmented.
