Escobar: The Global South Converges To Multipolar Moscow

The Global South Converges to Multipolar Moscow

Pepe Escobar

Moscow hosted a back-to-back multipolar conference plus the second meeting of the International Russophiles Movement (MIR, in its French acronym, which means “world” in Russian). Taken together, the discussions and networking have offered auspicious hints on the building of a truly representative international order – away from the agenda-imposed doom and gloom of single unipolar culture and Forever Wars.

The opening plenary session in the first day fell under the star power of Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – whose main message was crystal clear: “There can’t be freedom without free will”, which could easily become the new collective Global South motto. “Civilization-states” set the tone of the overall discussion – as they are meticulously designing the blueprints of economic, technological and cultural development in the post-Western hegemonic world.

Professor of International Relations Zhang Weiwei at Fudan University’s China Institute in Shanghai summarized the four crucial points when it comes to Beijing propelling its role as a “new independent pole.” That reads like a concise marker of where we are now:

Under the unipolar order, everything from dollars to computer chips can be weaponized. Wars and color revolutions are the norm.

China has become the largest economy in the world by PPP; the largest trade and industrial economy; and it is currently at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

China proposes a model of “Unite and Prosper” instead of a Western model of “Divide and Rule”.

The West tried to isolate Russia, but the Global Majority sympathizes with Russia. Thus, the Collective West has been isolated by the Global Rest.

Fighting the “theo-political war”

“Global Rest”, incidentally, is a misnomer: Global Majority is the name of the game. The same applies to “golden billion”; those that profit from the unipolar moment, mostly across the collective West and as comprador elites in the satraps, are at best 200 million or so.

Monday afternoon in Moscow featured three parallel sessions: on China and the multipolar world, where the star was Professor Weiwei; on the post-hegemony West, under the title “Is it possible to save the European civilization?” – attended by several dissident Europeans, academics, think tankers, activists; and the main treat – featuring the frontline actors of multipolarity.

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