New Delhi: The landslide numbers with which the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution to call for a ‘humanitarian pause’ in the violence in West Asia has certainly been an effective demonstration of international public opinion, especially from the Global South.
On October 27, 121 nations voted in favour of the resolution sponsored by Jordan and the Arab Group, while 14 voted against it and 44 abstained from voting. Iraq changed its vote from abstention to ‘Yes’ later, citing technical difficulties. Most of the Global South voted in favour of the resolution, while the West largely voted negatively or abstained.
The vote took place around three weeks after Hamas launched a terror attack inside Israel which killed around 1,400 people. In retaliation, Israel unleashed a massive campaign of airstrikes followed by ground operations in the past few days. Over an estimated 8,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip so far.
The UNGA vote marked a notable change in comparison to the situation after February 2022, when the Global South largely aligned with West-backed resolutions criticising Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
However, the growing resentment over the rising costs of fuel and fertiliser – as a result of the Ukraine war – did lead to Western countries publicly acknowledging the price being paid by the rest of the world. India, which has abstained from all UN resolutions that criticised Russia for the Ukraine war, had also sought to take the mantle of the Global South’s leadership by highlighting the disproportionate economic hardship being borne by Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The October 27 vote has brought into focus even more forcefully the stark difference between the Global South and the Global North.
Writing in the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta observed that despite the heightened concerns about a wider conflict, “there is not one significant world leader who is acting in a way that is not morally myopic or politically ill-judged”.
In his scathing critique of leaders ranging from the US president and European leaders to Arab regimes and China, he also highlighted how India’s self-professed leadership of the Global South has not gathered any support on such a key issue:
“As for India, one anecdote will suffice. I was at an international meeting recently, where someone, not unsympathetic to India, asked this question: ‘India claims to be the leader of the Global South. But let us ask the question, ‘who is following it?’”
To better understand this gulf between India and the rest of the Global South, The Wire spoke to Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Program at the Washington-based Quincy Institute.
Shidore noted that there was a greater consensus among the developing world about the response to the situation in Gaza, with the notable exceptions of India and Philippines. The other anomaly was the cluster of Pacific Island states, although they tend to vote with the US on many international issues.
While the Philippines, aligned with the West, abstained because it said it recognised Israel’s “right to self-defence”, what raised eyebrows across the Global South was India’s refusal to back the UNGA call for a humanitarian pause.
India claimed that it didn’t vote in favour of the UNGA resolution because the text didn’t explicitly criticise the October 7 terror attack by Hamas. Incidentally, India has not mentioned Hamas in any of its public statements, including its Explanation of Vote. As an aside, the last time that Hamas was mentioned by India was in April 2004, when the Ministry of External Affairs said that the targeted assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi was “unjustified and unacceptable and cannot be condoned under any circumstances”. Then, as now, the party in power in India was the Bharatiya Janata Party. Rantisi was killed by the Israeli Air Force.
Last week at the UN, India was the only South Asian country to not vote in favour of the resolution. Similarly, the Philippines was the only Southeast Asian country to not vote positively, with Cambodia not recording its vote.
According to Shidore, the global south strongly wants the war to end and has been critical of Israel’s actions. He estimates that in the Global South, outside West Asia, more than 70% of countries voted in favour of Jordan’s resolution, while around 23% abstained and only around 7% voted against.
Breaking it down geographically, he noted that 30 African countries, 26 Latin American countries, nine Southeast Asian countries and five South Asian countries had voted in favour of the resolution.
The following is an edited version of the interview conducted via e-mail.
Is it correct to say, especially in the aftermath of this UNGA resolution, that there is even greater divergence from the West and a more unified consensus in the Global South in the latest eruption of the Israel-Palestine dispute compared to the Ukraine war?
Yes, especially in the Middle East (West Asia) among its citizenry. Middle Eastern governments however remain more ambivalent, but they are being forced into a more critical stance toward Israel and the US due to public pressure.
What is your analysis of the voting record of the Global South to the October 27 UNGA resolution?
The analysis is in my Twitter thread. The noteworthy additional element is that several Global South states – largely in Latin America, though also key African ones such as Kenya and Nigeria – preferred to add language proposed by the US and Canada condemning Hamas and mentioning Israeli hostages, but this preference was not a barrier in their clear support for the adopted resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce”.
What factors have driven such a robust response from Global South members? Is it rooted in a perception of Western hypocrisy, considerations of domestic public opinion, or national interests and external influences?
Public opinion is a strong factor in the Middle East. The view that the US practices double standards when it comes to conflict and human rights is by now well-known across the non-Western world and understood, but the Gaza crisis will only further entrench this perception.
Is it reasonable to anticipate that the growing prominence of the ‘Global South’ in discussions will bring about a shift in policies?
If this war lasts much longer or escalates, the Middle Eastern governments may take further steps and there could be a major realignment away from the US – but we are not there yet. In the rest of the Global South, this is one of many factors that is increasing alienation from the West, though it is still incremental. The other important point here is that not all Global South states are following this trend. India and the Philippines are two major exceptions – both have been relatively sympathetic to Israeli and US positions on the matter.
Sarang Shidore Photo: X/@globalsarang
Has the current world order evolved enough to empower the Global South to play a more substantive role compared to the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War?
Middle Eastern states, if they took a much tougher stance toward the US and Israel, could have some impact on the war. The rest of the Global South will have less impact. However, these developments will not heal but only deepen the divergence between the West and most of the rest of the Global South. It is one factor of several.
Is a unified stance from the Global South a prerequisite for Western nations to take heed? Alternatively, is it more plausible that the rapid rise of specific nations within the Global South, bolstered by their economic clout, will prompt them to adapt their policies?
In my Foreign Affairs article, I noted that the biggest way that the Global South is asserting itself is through the actions of individual states. As I wrote, “These diverse and mostly uncoordinated actions, grounded strongly in the national interest of each country, are likely to have an impact greater than the sum of their parts.”
Many Global South states are wealthier and savvier than they were in the 20th century and have learned how to play off both sides to gain benefits for themselves. Compared to the Cold War period, their guiding principle is not “idealism, but realism, with an unhesitating embrace of national interests and increased recourse to power politics”.
