The Third World and The Non-Aligned Movement after the Second World War

Abstract

Between the late 19th and early 20th century, European and world powers carried out a foreign policy based on political, economic and military subordination in many regions of the world. This policy was justified by the belief in the superiority of European civilization and the consequent right of Europeans to impose their control over indigenous populations. Imperialism established the right of the strongest to assert their own interests over the weak. The first European states to put into practice such a policy were Great Britain and France, followed by Belgium, Russia, Germany, and Italy. The limitations of imperialism at the end of 800 is accurate. In the early 19th century, European colonial policies seemed to have reached a certain stability. England retained the domain of large areas of the world which were exploited for what concerned raw materials, at the base of its global economic dominance. In the Twenties and Thirties England began a greater penetration in South Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea, in the Horn of Africa, Ceylon, Burma into China, after the First Opium War (1839-42) and in Australia. In turn, France was committed to building an empire almost equally impressive, focusing its attention on Southeast Asia and the Southern Mediterranean; in Asia, Germany occupied some islands in the Pacific and in Africa seized in Togo and Cameroon and established the colony of South-West Africa (now Namibia) and East Africa (now Tanzania); Italy also undertook a delay in conquering imperialist policy Eritrea, Somalia and Libya. Between the World Wars, the situation began to change. During the 1914-1918 conflicts, indigenous supported the homelands by supplying raw materials and soldiers, while powers promised reforms as reward; however, indigenous gradually became aware that the war they were fighting in, was not their war, but the homeland’s. And, when the war was over, and promised of reforms were not complied with, colonies experienced wave of protests which gradually led to declaration of independence. It was the beginning of decolonization. Together with decolonization, another important event was taking place. After the Second World War was over, the world got divided into two parts, the one pro-Western and the other pro-Soviet, respectively led by USA and URSS. Countries of the so called Third World, which had been, and some still were, colonies, decided, during the Conference of Bandung (1955), to look for a cohesion based on common characteristics of poverty and "backwardness" and to put together all the neutral countries during the Cold War. Those countries became known as Non Aligned Countries, or Non Aligned Movement (NAM). After the Cold War and the completion of decolonization, the NAM further underlined the North-South contraposition asking for a new international economic order. In 1980, the Brandt Report, acknowledging the interdependence of countries all over the world, aimed at promoting a joined development between North and South, and a fairer distribution of resources in order to keep world justice, stability and peace.