Imperialist Savagery and the Global South's Historic Challenge

January 20th, 2026 marked the first anniversary of US President Trump's inauguration. Three days earlier, Trump issued tariff threats against eight European countries, announcing that rates would gradually increase to 10% and then 25% until the relevant parties reach an agreement on "the US's complete and total purchase of Greenland."^[2] Medvedev mocked this, saying that Make America Great Again (MAGA) equals Make Denmark Small Again (MDSA) equals Make Europe Poor Again (MEPA)—a truth that, according to him, "the fools have finally understood."^[3]

How should we systematically understand Trump's high-frequency, high-intensity international intervention actions over the past year of his administration? With three more years remaining in his term, in what direction will the international landscape evolve? 

In this interview, Matteo Capasso and Walaa Alqaisiya, scholars at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at Northwest University in China, sharply argue that the world order formed after World War II, international institutions, and even the "humanitarian" values underpinning this system have always been tools for imperialist profit-seeking, rather than something that became obsolete only under Trump.

From the war on terror and  war on drugs campaigns to the Nobel Peace Prize, this framework has allowed US interventionism to flourish globally: today's Gaza and Venezuela are merely evolved versions of yesterday's Iraq and Syria. However, unlike European nations that still cling to hopes of an international order, the declining US has recognized early on that the legitimacy of these moral weapons is now wavering, decisively discarding them to instead pursue internal consolidation and assert external domination.

Global South countries awakened earlier, but awareness alone cannot stop the bombs. Anti-imperialist resistance forces have not yet understood the necessity of self-reform—trapped as they are between comprador classes and imperialist sanctions. And so entire nations and regional areas, despite holding moral high ground, continue to fragment, lacking strategic capability. The two scholars interviewed emphasize that we are at a critical moment of historical acceleration: the Global South needs regional alliances that, through mass mobilization, overcome government dependency and transform moral clarity into material conditions for resistance.

Wenhua Zongheng: Let's start with recent events. Although the Trump administration is increasingly brazen in not masking its actions, its supporters and representatives continue to wield humanitarian rhetoric as a weapon: Machado, for example, fervently praised the US kidnapping of Maduro as a contribution "to the freedom of the Venezuelan people." Ironically, when Trump declared his intention to take full control of Greenland, Western countries—particularly NATO allies—seem to have suddenly realized the unreliability of this system. When interests are at stake, the so-called international order becomes waste paper. Let us try to reconstruct with you the history of how the US has legitimized foreign interventionism through such rhetoric.

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: Once we understand that "human rights" and "humanitarianism" are not universal principles but complex tools for projecting imperialist power, the apparent contradictions in US discourse disappear. The weaponization of this humanitarian rhetoric is a form of selective humanization, in which some groups are deemed worthy of protection while others are excluded from the moral universe, deemed unworthy of rights.

This selectivity operates through the logical structure by which imperialist powers define "humanity." According to colonial and imperialist hierarchies, Western modernity has historically drawn boundaries between "human" and "non-human".^[4] The term "human" in human rights discourse specifically indicates those groups that serve imperialist objectives, while resisters are systematically dehumanized and thus excluded from humanitarian protection—just as happens with the "barbaric, terrorist Palestinians" in the context of Gaza.

Last August, the US State Department released its 2024 Human Rights Report, defining Israeli actions in Gaza as "legitimate military operations" while condemning China's artificial intelligence technology and Iran's drones as "threats to global human rights." This approach clearly reveals how humanitarian discourse judges acceptability based on the relationship between specific actions and US imperialist interests.

This pattern becomes more coherent when examining how this humanitarian discourse framework has operated over decades of US intervention in West Asia. The systematic weaponization of UN mechanisms not only protects diplomatic actions but also condones direct intelligence operations and military strikes, fundamentally eroding international institutions.

An example: the Bush administration justified the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by citing the need to "liberate Afghan women from Taliban oppression." Laura Bush gave radio speeches about women's rights while US bombs destroyed Afghanistan's infrastructure. Through systematic use of feminist rhetoric, the US transformed a purely strategic intervention into a "civilizing mission," creating the ideological framework for the subsequent two-decade occupation.

Ironically, the US occupation failed to concretely improve women's conditions, instead causing mass displacement and civilian casualties—demonstrating that humanitarian rhetoric obscured the problem rather than improving the material conditions it claimed to address.

The strategy employed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq was different, but it too revealed how UN institutions were instrumentalized to achieve military objectives. Humanitarian concerns about human rights conditions under Saddam Hussein provided partial justification for government change, despite the US having supported that same government during the Iran-Iraq War for its own interests.

A 1999 New York Times report revealed that US intelligence agencies had systematically infiltrated UN weapons inspection teams to conduct espionage against Iraq. US officials confirmed that the CIA used UN inspectors as cover to gather intelligence on Iraqi military installations and government communications.^[5]

This infiltration allowed the US to collect information on potential military targets under the international legitimacy granted by UN authorization, transforming ostensibly humanitarian and disarmament missions into covert intelligence operations serving US strategic objectives.

The Libyan case demonstrates how the strategy exploits international institutions to provide multilateral legitimacy for imperialist intervention. NATO's 2011 intervention was authorized under the Responsibility to Protect principle, ostensibly to prevent a potential humanitarian catastrophe in Benghazi.

Hillary Clinton's celebratory comment "We came, we saw, he died" upon Gaddafi's death exposed the triumphalist logic underlying humanitarian interventionism. Africa's most prosperous country then became a land of slave markets and civil war.^[6]

Syria witnessed the most sophisticated version of this strategy. "Humanitarian concern" for protesters repressed by Assad provided justification for arming the opposition, prolonging and intensifying the conflict. The focus on chemical attacks and civilian casualties diverted attention from the US's broader objective: weakening Iranian influence and dismantling Syrian state capacity. Systematic amplification of women's rights issues and minority protection created moral pressure for intervention; claims of "protecting the population" obscured the harm inflicted upon them by the prolonged conflict.^[7]

This pattern persists today. In August 2025, Yemen's Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah) raided the World Food Programme and UNICEF offices in Sanaa. They claimed these humanitarian organizations were being used to gather intelligence and collaborate with the Saudi-led coalition that, with US military support, has devastated Yemen. The pattern of infiltrating UN agencies used during the Iraq War has fueled legitimate public concerns that humanitarian organizations may be co-opted for military purposes. As occurred with Gaza humanitarian foundations, suspicions remain that such operations may ignore fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

Finally, the Iranian case illustrates how this framework adapts when military intervention proves impractical, ultimately transforming into comprehensive sanctions against the nation and support for opposition movements. During protests, the US systematically amplified local women's rights issues, instrumentalizing Iranian women's struggles to undermine government stability while presenting the US as a universal defender of human rights—despite sanctions inflicting tangible practical harm on Iranian women and families. Humanitarian discourse can have no relationship to the real concerns of the populations it claims to protect.

An analysis of historical interventions reveals that "human rights imperialism" constitutes a systematic US global strategy rather than the consistent application of a universal principle. The mechanism remains identical across all operations: amplifying genuine grievances while obscuring how US intervention worsens conditions for the groups supposedly being protected; creating humanitarian crises to justify interventions serving broader geopolitical objectives; exploiting international institutions to confer multilateral legitimacy on unilateral imperialist interests while systematically undermining their neutrality through intelligence infiltration and military coordination.

Through meticulous iterative refinement, this framework is now being used against China in the contemporary era. Through methodological fraud and fabricated research, Adrian Zenz has systematically invented false accusations against China, instrumentalizing humanitarian discourse against the new challenger to US hegemony. The response of international institutions also reveals strong partiality: in Gaza, faced with overwhelming concrete evidence and the International Court of Justice's conclusion that there is "credible evidence of genocide," these Western institutions hesitated, urging moderation in criticism. Yet, faced with research riddled with mathematical errors and methodological flaws, these same institutions unhesitatingly leveled identical accusations against China.

Wenhua Zongheng: In this regard, one cannot overlook the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. A few days ago, Machado donated the medal and diploma she received to Trump, making this recognition—already severely discredited—increasingly resembling a farce. Indeed, critics have long denounced this prize as a weapon of human rights imperialism. What do you think?

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: Inventing "atrocities" by an empire's adversaries to obscure the true violence perpetrated by its allies—the latest and most brazen manifestation of this strategy is the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition icon María Corina Machado. The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised her for "tirelessly promoting democratic rights," yet as early as 2020 she had signed a formal cooperation agreement with Netanyahu and Israel's right-wing Likud party. After receiving the prize, she called Netanyahu to praise "Israel's efforts against Iran" and expressed support for Israeli military actions during the Gaza genocide.

As stated in an open letter to the Nobel Committee from the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, this prize "is stained with blood".^[8]

The Bolivarian revolutionaries that Machado seeks to annihilate stand in stark contrast to her position. In July 2024, during the presidential election, Nicolás Maduro proclaimed "Long live free Palestine," while his adversary Machado had long declared that "Israel's struggle is our struggle." This divergence reveals their fundamental opposition regarding attitudes toward imperialism and genocide, as well as their different interpretations of the true meaning of "human rights."

In 2009, during Israel's "Operation Cast Lead," Chávez's Bolivarian revolution severed diplomatic relations with Israel and unequivocally condemned its genocidal actions in Gaza, making Venezuela the first Latin American nation to break relations with this colonial settler state and recognize Palestine's 1967 borders.

Maduro has consistently defined the Palestinian cause as "humanity's most sacred cause",^[9] and in November 2024 hosted the "International Conference in Solidarity with Palestine" in Caracas. Palestinian leader Leila Khaled addressed delegates from 53 nations at the conference. Maduro supported the genocide case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice, denounced the UN's "cowardly silence" in the face of Israeli atrocities, and warned that any unjust ceasefire agreement would bring only "peace of rubble."

Therefore, the Nobel Peace Prize operates according to a logic of "inverted humanitarianism": it honors undisputed supporters of genocide while silencing those who oppose it; it encourages solidarity with war criminals and condemns the unity of the oppressed. Machado has pledged to restore diplomatic relations with Israel, move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem, and "fully recognize Israeli sovereignty over the city"—a move that would overturn decades of Venezuelan solidarity principles and align the nation with the colonial project to dismantle Palestine.

Similarly, she has explicitly supported privatizing the Venezuelan state oil company (PDVSA), dismantling public oversight of financial regulation, and implementing structural adjustment policies dictated by the IMF and World Bank—a neoliberal "remedy" that has devastated numerous Global South nations while enriching transnational capital.

The Nobel Peace Prize serves as a tool of imperialist-capitalist soft power: it co-opts leaders who align with the imperialist consensus, exaggerates the threat posed by "barbaric" anti-imperialist struggles, erodes their influence, consolidates Western hegemony, and instrumentalizes humanitarianism to legitimize the abuse of force. This has been the Nobel Peace Prize's constant modus operandi.

In 1994, the prize was awarded to Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat, endorsing the Oslo Accords—an agreement that incorporated the Palestinian national liberation movement into the international aid management framework, obscuring its anti-imperialist nature and laying the institutional groundwork for the current genocide.

In 2009, Barack Obama received the prize just months after his inauguration. He then promptly extended drone killings in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan, pursued hybrid warfare, destroyed Libya, and expanded military bases across Africa and the Middle East.

In 2016, the prize was awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, conferring international legitimacy on his so-called "peace process"—a process preceded by his government's systematic assassination campaign against FARC leadership, which ultimately preserved oligarchic rule while opening the nation's doors to transnational capital.

The timing of Machado's award is also significant. During the December 2025 ceremony, Norwegian peace organizations staged protests outside, while over 80 Latin Americans were killed in the Caribbean by US forces under the pretext of "drug enforcement." Four UN bodies determined that these US actions constitute "extrajudicial executions in violation of international law."

Machado not only endorsed the US operational framework but also echoed the Trump administration's accusations, labeling Venezuela a "narco-terrorist" state requiring military intervention. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom condemned the prize, stating it "has been conferred upon a politician who supports intervention and defends violations of international law, betraying the very purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize."

However, this apparent contradiction dissolves when one recognizes that the prize's true purpose has never been to promote peace, but rather to legitimize the violence essential to sustaining imperialist hegemony.

If the international community fails to recognize and resist such practices, the humanitarian rhetoric that once legitimized the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria (along with the systematic infiltration of UN agencies for intelligence gathering and targeted strikes) will continue to be used against any nation that dares pursue an independent path. Netanyahu's open support for the US military kidnapping of Venezuela's president, combined with the Nobel Peace Prize's whitewashing of imperialist ideological allies—what is happening today in Caracas—demonstrates that this is not a hypothetical future risk but present reality.

The systematically eroded human rights discourse, as anticipated by imperialist strategists, will inevitably be deployed against China, paving the way for what could prove to be the most significant great power confrontation in human history to date. Therefore, restoring authentic humanitarian principles and institutional independence has become an urgent imperative for humanity's common future and for global peace and justice.

Wenhua Zongheng: Yet in recent conflicts, we observe a clear decline in international acceptance of this narrative. From the "war on terror" to the "war on drugs," the US framing finds decreasing resonance. How do you interpret this shift in perception?

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: To understand why the "war on drugs" narrative has lost its effectiveness, we must first trace the historical context of imperialist propaganda strategies. Since the Cold War, the US has consistently used such narratives to justify its interventions in the Global South. The "war on drugs" follows the same trajectory as the "war on terror": by creating abstract enemies—terrorism, drugs, migrants, corruption—it legitimizes military, economic, and political aggression against sovereign states that resist US hegemony.^[10]

The "war on drugs" model was established during the Reagan era. The "war on terror" that emerged after the September 11, 2001 attacks represented an intensified, globalized version of it, not a novelty. Both operate through identical mechanisms: specific populations are racialized and portrayed as inherently threatening; issues that originally belonged to the social or public health sphere are militarized; international institutions are manipulated to provide shifting legitimacy for unilateral imperialist objectives; and the destruction, incarceration, or elimination of those whom neoliberal capitalism considers "surplus population" generates profit.

In 1971, the Nixon administration criminalized drug use, employing it domestically as a racialized control mechanism; through agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), this logic extended globally, transforming sovereign nations into targets of imperialist policing. By the time the "war on terror" began, a complete apparatus encompassing ideology, institutional frameworks, and military deployments was already in place.

Today the world sees through these lies, as the history of imperialism is now visible to all. The consistency of this operational model is too clear to be ignored or misunderstood. Over the past two years, the most atrocious crime of this century has unfolded in Gaza: a genocide broadcast worldwide, in which Israeli forces have massacred over 64,000 children while the US supported them with ammunition, diplomatic cover, and financial backing.

We witness a chilling and thought-provoking contrast: Trump enthusiastically courted and praised current Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa (alias Abu Muhammad al-Julani), once designated a terrorist by the US; simultaneously, the US branded Nicolás Maduro a "drug lord." Terrorists become politicians, elected presidents become criminals—these labels bear no relationship to whether they actually participated in terrorism or drug trafficking. They more closely resemble imperialist labels: imposed on resisters, then withdrawn once they submit.

Before 2001, opium production in Afghanistan had decreased tenfold. Subsequently, during the US occupation, it increased thirtyfold. After the US withdrawal, the Taliban banned poppy cultivation, causing a 95% collapse in opium production. According to UN reports, Venezuela plays only a marginal role in global drug trafficking, yet faces US accusations of "drug smuggling"; meanwhile, Wall Street banks launder money for drug cartels with impunity: Wachovia Bank financed cocaine shipments worth hundreds of millions of dollars without a single executive being prosecuted; Philadelphia seized a JPMorgan Chase ship loaded with cocaine, but only crew members were imprisoned. Confronted with its internal contradictions, this propaganda narrative collapsed long ago.

The majority of the world's population, particularly in the Global South, has witnessed too many historical interventions to accept this rhetoric as valid. Latin American peoples have watched "Plan Colombia" and the "Merida Initiative" pour billions into militarization while local drug flows remain unchanged and violence against civilians escalates. Their homelands have become the world's most violent regions—eight of the ten countries with the highest homicide rates globally are in Latin America—a direct consequence of the "war on drugs."

The peoples of West Asia and North Africa witnessed firsthand the devastation wrought in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan under the pretext of the "war on terror," reducing once-prosperous nations to chaotic ruins. The pattern is clear: continuous destruction, predictable consequences, inevitable plundering of resources following military intervention, and tight links to geopolitical maneuvering... People have learned the harsh lesson of imperialism's "experience-based education" at their own expense.

Wenhua Zongheng: Does this mean that resistance to US interventionism has become a consensus among Global South nations? What implications might this have for current and future international dynamics?

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: Does this growing skepticism indicate that US interventionism is facing a fundamental crisis of legitimacy? Certainly yes, but we must understand the historical moment in which we live and what this crisis may or may not signify.

We have entered an era of accelerated history. This is an unprecedented critical moment: the situation is complex and turbulent, developments are rapidly accelerating, and we are on the verge of an explosion. Great historical transformations often begin this way: factors precipitating collapse accumulate inexorably, while a dying empire lashes out in all directions, ignoring rules, exercising no restraint, and completely abandoning its previous semblance of legitimacy.

Trump recently made this unequivocally clear: "I don't need international law".^[11] This is not a slip of the tongue but an official declaration that the existing international order no longer offers any protection, completely shattering the illusion that the UN mechanism and Western-dominated institutions can protect the oppressed from imperialist violence. Anyone who still believes in the current system lives in a dangerous illusion—placing their hopes in international law, in institutions controlled by the perpetrators of violence, or in the US and its allies who have proclaimed themselves protectors of the weak.

The prevailing order was never designed to restrain empire but to legitimize it. Trump has simply articulated what has always been true. A declining empire grows ever more savage, using colonization and genocide as its tools, while the very institutions that should prevent such horrors are instrumentalized to grant them license.

Recently, Trump posted AI-manipulated images on his "Truth Social" platform, superimposing the Stars and Stripes onto Canada, the Danish territory of Greenland, and Venezuela.

The crucial point is that even as legitimacy diminishes, the US and Israel have not stopped or retreated. They have consolidated internally. Having discovered the failure of old consensus mechanisms, they have begun restructuring themselves, resorting entirely to coercive means; this requires unified, centralized command, not fragmented institutions still concerned with legitimacy and image.

Trump understood all this with a gangster's instinct—if one refuses to acknowledge him as a strategist. He has systematically marginalized every institution that might constrain executive power: Pentagon caution, State Department diplomatic considerations, intelligence agency procedural objections. Liberals lament the decline of democratic norms, but from the standpoint of imperialist consolidation, this represents a necessary clearing of obstacles.

The "deep state" denounced by Trump is not a conspiratorial clique but rather institutional residues accumulated since the dawn of US hegemony—an era when US dominance was secure and could withstand layers of deliberate caution. That era is irrevocably over. Trump's contribution lies in adapting the US power apparatus to the demands of imperialist decline: swift action, ruthless execution, and unstoppable momentum unimpeded by internal dissent.

Netanyahu replicated this approach within the Zionist establishment. After October 7, 2023, he faced intense internal opposition: protests demanding his resignation, military and intelligence officials questioning his leadership, hostage families demanding negotiations. He ignored them all. Netanyahu marginalized the security agencies that failed to organize resistance, repressed political opponents, and concentrated all decision-making power in a war cabinet operating entirely outside institutional constraints (fascism and authoritarianism). Before implementing genocide, he preemptively resolved all internal conflicts that might have constrained him. The lesson is clear: whoever achieves internal cohesion can act externally without restrictions.

Therefore, despite a legitimacy crisis existing, imperialist capacity remains unchanged. The narrative is failing, but it was only a tool for the "consent phase"; the pretext has been exposed, but this matters only as long as the empire still seeks validation. International public opinion has clearly turned against the US and Israel, but public opinion constrains only those who still expect the masses to accept hegemonic operating mechanisms. The Global South no longer believes imperialist propaganda—nor does the empire care.

The US bombed Venezuela without consequences. It continues funding Israel, providing weapons for genocide, ignoring International Court rulings, UN resolutions, and the daily terrorism witnessed by billions. Trump declared he doesn't need international law and kept his promise. The imperialist machine has freed itself from the institutional constraints of its hegemonic apex and now operates through pure coercion. It no longer needs public trust: the absence of effective countervailing power suffices. The world sees through the lies, but that alone is nowhere near enough to stop the guns.

Wenhua Zongheng: We can indeed observe that as the old masks lose legitimacy, the US no longer seeks to hide its true intentions. Many argue that contemporary international politics has entered an era where "might makes right," with no effective international order to balance or constrain this unchecked power. What do you think? Will this become the central theme of international affairs in the coming years?

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: To answer this question, we will borrow insights from two important Marxist thinkers. Antonio Gramsci once observed: "The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters," accurately describing the world's regression toward "the law of the strongest" as a transitional crisis. In his Victory Day speech, President Xi Jinping emphasized that "humanity once again faces the choice between peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, mutually beneficial cooperation or zero-sum games," revealing the dialectical nature of our historical reality: contradictions are unified, mutually permeable, and capable of transforming into one another under specific material conditions.

The collapse of the international system represents a crucial contradiction between two fundamentally opposed modes of social reproduction. US-led imperialism has evolved into a system of "accumulation by waste," wherein, under conditions of financial monopoly, systematic destruction has become capitalism's primary means for value creation and political control.

This dying order will not simply give way to a multipolar system: it intensifies its investment in organized violence, as this remains the only viable means to sustain hegemony. The superficial stability of Western societies depends on the continuous instability of peripheral regions: the "peaceful" international order extolled by liberal institutionalists rests upon the West's prolonged violent interventions in West Asia and the Americas. The material foundation of this "peace" is the Global South's perpetual war; these are not simple dichotomies but realities that have long coexisted within the current global system.

The Middle East serves as the convergence point of these two systems, where contradictions explode. Gaza embodies the archetypal model of "accumulation by waste," while the broader axis of resistance has stimulated heightened anti-imperialist consciousness among semi-proletarianized populations. Prolonged conflict serves multiple functions: it resolves capitalist overproduction crises through military spending, eliminates potential resistance groups, dismantles competing national economies, and creates new markets for reconstruction. Simultaneously, contradictions generated by the conflict itself fragment resistance movements.

Gramsci's so-called "monster" emerges precisely when neither the old nor the new order achieves decisive victory. The return of the law of the strongest marks the exhaustion, not the triumph, of traditional imperialist mechanisms. Unable to maintain dominance through economic integration or political legitimacy, the imperialist system increasingly relies on direct violence and systematic destruction.

President Xi Jinping's emphasis on "choice" means that human agency must operate within the framework of contradiction, not transcend it. The escalating tensions of the current situation are simultaneously generating their antithesis: opting for peace, dialogue, and mutually beneficial cooperation is not only morally superior but has become a historical necessity for human survival.

China has charted an alternative development path, and the organizational power of Global South popular movements must dialectically unite with it. This represents neither pure peace nor pure war, but a process of transformation in which struggle itself creates entirely new possibilities for the regeneration of social relations. We face not permanent regression but a high-stakes gamble for civilization whose outcome remains uncertain. As traditional exploitation mechanisms approach their limits, imperialist powers may increasingly resort to massacre and violence.

Understanding the dialectic between peace and war reveals why this transitional period appears so chaotic—for it contains unprecedented possibilities for systemic transformation beyond the logic of organized destruction. The fundamental question now is whether transformative forces can intervene decisively before imperialist destruction mechanisms destroy the material foundations upon which human civilization depends.

Wenhua Zongheng: within the Global South specifically, another trend emerges. On one hand, nations like South Africa, Cuba, and Colombia often voice stronger opposition to these injustices than major Western powers. On the other hand, however, the Global South's capacity to concretely influence these dynamics remains severely limited.

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: This contradiction lies at the heart of contemporary politics. Exposing the lies is not enough; the crucial factor resides in the capacity to translate this moral clarity into concrete action. Bridging the gap between awareness and practice that traps Global South peoples is the urgent task before us.

First, we must acknowledge the existence of this gap. South Africa, drawing on its anti-apartheid heritage, demonstrated extraordinary moral courage by initiating genocide proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Under Lula's leadership, Brazil recalled its ambassador and condemned Israel's actions. Colombia, under Petro, publicly supported Palestine and severed diplomatic relations with Israel.

Mexico also joined the International Court of Justice proceedings. This demonstrates that a significant portion of humanity refuses to accept the moral consensus and normalization of violence imposed by imperialist hegemony. Yet these principled positions have not stopped a single bullet, ended the genocide, resolved the famine, or forced the powers involved to open humanitarian corridors. The contradiction is stark: the Global South is raising its voice while imperialism turns a deaf ear.

Why? Because anti-imperialist forces have not reconfigured themselves for this moment, unlike imperialist powers.

As already observed, Trump and Netanyahu understood that internally fragmented organizations cannot wage life-or-death struggles abroad. They therefore resolved internal contradictions, marginalized opposition forces, and consolidated decision-making bodies capable of acting without restrictions (fascism and authoritarianism). The Global South, however, has not undergone comparable reconfiguration. Progressive governments continue to operate within state structures designed for dependency.

Regional organizations remain weak or have collapsed: the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) exists in name only, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) is severely weakened, and the African Union remains shackled by neocolonial economic systems. Even nominally progressive national bourgeoisies remain indissolubly tied to transnational capital, severely constraining their room for maneuver. The net result is that the Global South possesses moral standing but lacks strategic capability.

However, a deeper problem persists. Far from uniting, the Global South faces active internal fragmentation.

As Arab Marxist Adel Samara observes, what we are witnessing can be defined as "a third wave of nationalism." Unlike the first wave (European bourgeois nationalism, which consolidated nation-states while engaged in global colonial plunder) and the second wave (mid-twentieth century anti-colonial liberation movements), this third wave of nationalism is a project orchestrated by imperialism and designed to dismantle the newly independent nations born from decolonization.

It operates through a precise mechanism: imperialist powers ally with the comprador bourgeoisie, whose interests align with external hegemonic rule rather than internal development. Subsequently, these local elites are exploited to fragment existing nations along ethnic, sectarian, or regional lines. Ultimately, a multitude of dependent micro-political entities have emerged: these have become permanent imperialist outposts, continually provoking wars in their homelands and regions under the banner of self-determination.

Observe the events unfolding in the Arab world and the Horn of Africa. The United Arab Emirates (a family-ruled state whose wealth derives entirely from oil/gas revenues, with a strategic orientation totally subservient to US and Israeli interests) has become one of the main instigators of regional fragmentation. It arms and finances separatist forces in southern Yemen, perceiving a unified Yemen as a threat while a fragmented puppet government remains manipulable. It supports Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, transforming an initial political crisis into a civil catastrophe that has displaced millions and rendered Sudan's future as a unified state precarious.

The same logic is being applied in Somaliland: there is no legitimate justification for recognizing this separatist entity, whose sole purpose is to weaken Somalia, establish another imperialist outpost in the Red Sea, and demonstrate to the world that African sovereignty is worthless when Gulf states provide funding and Western powers grant permission.

In Syria, an alliance of Arab governments, Gulf monarchies, Western powers, Turkey, and Israel spent decades funding, arming, and providing diplomatic cover for the destruction of the country's government. After Ahmad al-Sharaa (Julani) was installed as president, Israel immediately invaded Syrian territory, systematically dismantling the nation's military infrastructure. The Syrian Arab Republic's motto was "Unity, Freedom, Socialism"—precisely why the coalition had to destroy this nation that firmly defended its independence and self-sufficiency. These three words represent the values the Global South must now defend.

Each successful regional disintegration—from South Sudan to Kosovo to Somaliland to Libya to Yemen—weakens the collective strength of marginalized nations to resist imperialist power. These nascent micro-governments are inherently dependent: their comprador leaderships are sustained exclusively by external financiers, their economies are structured for resource extraction, their armies are trained to strike neighbors rather than external threats. Short-sighted elites, intoxicated by the false allure of power, serve imperialist interests at their own people's expense—and so the marginalized world precipitates into self-destruction.

Wenhua Zongheng: As you note, subjectively freeing oneself from dependency is already extremely difficult. Objectively, however, nations that persist in resistance often become primary targets for sanctions or attacks. Faced with this contradiction, where do you see the key for the Global South to overcome its current difficult situation?

Matteo Capasso & Walaa Alqaisiya: Iran and Venezuela are glaring examples: their commitment to independence has exposed them to large-scale imperialist attacks. Iran faces a series of overt actions aimed at government change, including economic blockades, orchestrated social unrest, Israeli assassinations, and direct US threats. The Axis of Resistance previously demonstrated what organized anti-imperialist forces can achieve, but today this network is severely weakened, and Iran has yet to rebuild its strategic framework.

In the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela's foundational anti-imperialist efforts have suffered direct military aggression: under the pretext of "combating drug trafficking," its president was kidnapped, its fishermen bombed, and its national sovereignty completely disregarded. The Bolivarian Revolution demonstrated the possibility of an alternative development path, but now its very survival is being tested. Both face identical structural challenges: fragmented internal organization or half-hearted measures prove inadequate against offensives of such magnitude; nor can a single nation resist alone. Regional solidarity is the prerequisite for survival.

The Global South must revive the Bandung spirit—but this time through alliance, not non-alignment. The Non-Aligned Movement arose at a specific historical moment when navigating between superpowers could create space for newly independent nations. Times have changed. Today, non-alignment has become equivalent to tacit alignment with imperialist powers, who exploit neutrality rather than respect it. The Global South needs internal alliances to collectively oppose the West's capitalist-imperialist system, forging a new internationalism that pools material resources rather than merely declaring positions in discourse.

Such new alliances must begin by dismantling existing structures. Why does UN headquarters remain in New York? Here, the US can arbitrarily kidnap any foreign leader, activist, or dissident who sets foot on its soil. Why is the International Court of Justice located in The Hague, a city in NATO territory and in the imperialist heartland? Such arrangements, even if once justified, were only viable for the brief period following World War II, before the illusion of a "rules-based order" was completely unmasked. Now that the illusion has vanished, the Global South should at least demand relocating international institutions to the Third World, or take more radical and necessary action to establish parallel institutions whose statutes are not drafted by Western powers and whose operations are not subject to Western veto.

China is doing its best. The Belt and Road Initiative constitutes the foundational infrastructure for the most significant alternative development path in human history. The Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative, and Global Governance Initiative are concrete frameworks for organizing the world around construction rather than destruction, dialogue rather than coercion, and mutual benefit rather than imperialist plunder.

China has demonstrated that rapid development outside Western control is possible and that a civilization can modernize without submitting to Atlantic hegemony. However, China cannot achieve this alone. The Global South must undertake the arduous task of "decoupling": reducing dependence on the US dollar, establishing alternative payment mechanisms, and deepening South-South trade that bypasses Western chokepoints. BRICS is a beginning, but only a beginning; it must evolve further or be supplanted by organizational mechanisms capable of more decisive action.

However, nations will not achieve this automatically. Too many ruling classes in the Global South have already reconciled with imperialism. These comprador bourgeoisies, who profit from subordination, will not act unless compelled. Mass mobilization is therefore essential: the people must force the state to act when it is captive to comprador interests, defend progressive governments from imperialist subversion, and create the political conditions that enable alliances. Anti-imperialist mass mobilization must emerge at all levels—from the streets to the state, from local to regional—because history waits for no one who is unprepared.

Rosa Luxemburg, elaborating Marx's theory, incisively observed: socialism or barbarism. Today this is no longer an abstract choice. We are witnessing unmasked barbarism: in Gaza, in the Caribbean, in the fragmentation processes targeting all nations that assert their independence.

The twentieth century proved that resisting colonialism is possible; the twenty-first century offers only two outcomes: either the triumph of resistance or total capitulation. There is no gray zone, and surrender means the failure of humanity itself. The ultimate answer depends entirely on the Global South's capacity to transform moral positions into material conditions, unite discourses into institutional subversion, and fuse fragmented resistance into a coordinated force of opposition.

Matteo Capasso is a Professor at the School of Country and Region Studies, Northwest University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China. He is the author of Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Syracuse University Press, 2023) and co-editor of The Imperialist Question in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge, 2025). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Middle East Critique.

Walaa Alqaisiya is Associate Professor at the School of Country and Region Studies, Northwest University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China. She is the author of Decolonial Queering in Palestine (Routledge, 2022) and co-editor of Palestine and the Western Academe (Routeldge, 2025).

Rong Jianxin is a journalist at the Beijing Cultural Review.

Endnotes