Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World New York: The New Press, 2007
After the calamity of World War II the victors immediately began to fight over the spoils. The 'First World' of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—primarily the US and Western Europe—was dedicated to spreading 'Western' political ideals and market capitalism, while the 'Second World' of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Eastern Europe, and eventually China maintained the validity of socialist planned economies. The question since then has been the place in the scheme of things for that other part of the world which was either just escaping from of still under the iron heel of western imperialism.
The strange logic of western political discourse consists of paradigms such as the following: the 'Third World' is named as such by the 'First World' because it somehow inherently inferior and developmentally backwards compared to the 'First World,' even though its shortcomings are largely due to exploitative, extractive 'First World' economic policies. Condemning the thing you exploit because of its exploited status is typical of steely capitalist logic. This condescension and labeling justifies its own exploitation, and conveniently—with much effort and bloodshed—erases the history of resistance to those policies. As the Russian Tsar told Alexander Pushkin when presented with the latter's proposal to write a history of a peasant leader: 'such a man has no history.'
But of course the peoples of the Third World do have histories that cannot be erased, and also wealth in terms of resources, culture, and in the promise of struggle against oppression and domination. Not only that, the peoples who are the subject of Vijay Prashad's /The Darker Nations:/ /A People's History of the Third World/ organized to capture and subvert that pejorative label and turn it into a liberation project. From meetings in Baku in 1920 to Havana in 1966 and beyond, in United Nations and in the streets, factories and fields, oppressed peoples caught between the bilateral poles of the Cold War landscape struggled to lead their own movements and make their own history. Prashad skillfully weaves a history that takes in the Third World project in all its guises, from those answering Lenin's call for 'self-determination of nations' to 'Arab socialism' in the Cold War to the various coups and strongmen of today.
Unfortunately, the project in its various guises leading up to the Non-Aligned Movement had an inherent weakness: after independence had been won, the conservative nationalist forces in the popular coalitions took control and the progressives, socialists, and Communists were purged and in many cases massacred. What resulted was the gradual dilution of the liberation struggle into the western neo-imperialisms, or 'structural adjustments,' of the IMF, World Bank, and US trade deals and military bases. There followed a hegemonic normalization of the traditional oligarchic forces and their classist, racist, and religious ideologies. By the 1980s the promise of the Non-Aligned Movement was eclipsed by international capitalism benefitting a new US-friendly elite, and there didn't even exist a credible political force to advocate something as clear and simple as debt relief. The suffering masses are offered the cruel consolation of cultural nationalism, racism, and religious chauvinism; the world is now seeing in clear, unmistakable terms the results of the First World victory in the resurgence of military-power-as-policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Prashad's work is an important contribution to Marxist historiography. He clearly elucidates what went wrong, and does an admirable job in explaining how the dominance of western imperialism never went away, but merely put on a kinder, gentler mask. Prashad's book also is a timely warning to those seeking a broad coalition with the non-Marxist left. Protests for debt relief or against globalization are extremely valuable, but those who are protesting must have a clear theoretical idea of what they might replace global capitalism with. As Prashad concludes, what allows these present regimes to operate within IMF-style rules and models is 'lack of coherence and dynamism' on the left. There is 'no lucid vision for the new dispensation' and no 'strong institutional formation to tackle US-driven primacy.' Reform within the rules and structures of capitalism is simply not enough to overturn old hierarchies and end exploitation; that's because the essence of capitalism is in fact nothing /but /exploitation.
But in addition to describing the unfortunate cooptation of the Third World liberation project, Prashad reminds us that IMF-style globalization does have its limits, and is inspiring new movements all over the world that advocate women's rights, land and water rights, cultural dignity, indigenous rights, political representation, and basic human rights. The unanswered question is whether these movements can avoid past mistakes and assemble a sound political program that will truly change who is in the driver's seat.
