How "Our Half" dies

The resounding re-election recently of Hugo Chavez to the Venezuelan Presidency marks a dramatic consolidation of the socialist resurgence in the US' own backyard which is Latin America.

This is, however, in marked contrast to other parts of the world where there seems to be surprisingly an accelerated acceptance of the "capitalist world system" and a progressive upstaging of everything even remotely connected with the "socialist revolution".

differential impact

This remarkable contrast should be a stimulant to further study and debate on the differential impact of economic globalization on diverse regions of the world.

In the disciplines of Third World politics and Development Studies, Asia, Africa and Latin America are considered core geographical regions, currently experiencing the worst blights of economic globalization in the neo-colonial era, having earlier borne the full brunt of colonialism in all its dimensions.

However, curiously, it is only in Latin America that the reaction to Western-foisted "market economics" and its social and political fallout is being registered most prominently.

In the rest of the world, there is not only an almost unreserved acceptance of the market system and all that it delivers, but also a complacent wallowing, on the part of some states, in the political and social decay that comes in its wake. This is certainly the case with politically repressive States in Asia and Africa, where the State class is turning increasingly parasitic and exploitative, while the majority of the people steadily sink below the poverty line.

The exception

Latin America, however, seems to be the exception to the rule. The resurgence of the Left, virtually under the nose of the US, does not necessarily imply that we are on the threshold of witnessing a dramatic betterment of the lot of the Latin American masses, but we could certainly see some bold efforts at changing the economic and political development models assiduously thrust on the Third World in the neo-colonial decades, by the West and its principal development and financial institutions.

In other words, a paradigm shift in all aspects of development could very likely be on the cards in Latin America at least. Besides, the power and influence of the West would be challenged to a degree, as is already happening in Venezuela under Chavez.

To add to the West's woes, Cuba and Venezuela are likely to be joined by Nicaragua, where former Leftist President Daniel Ortega has been voted back to power.

Earlier, Bolivia voted Left and Left of centre and centrist governments were elected in a number of other Central and Latin American States.

In contrast to this coming together of the Left in a region which is embarrassingly too close to the citadel of capital which is the US, the rest of the world's predominant regions exude the air of being quite comfortable with their lot as up-and-coming practitioners of economic liberalization.

Such regions include South Asia, where India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is on record that the world is vast enough to accommodate the economic aspirations of both India and China.

Both India and China are viewed as the foremost economic power houses of Asia but poverty alleviation even in India does not seem to be proceeding at the desired pace. Besides, there is no substantive radical questioning of the prevailing, market-centred development paradigm in this part of the world on the part of its intelligentsia, perhaps because the consciousness of the masses is being increasingly clouded by religious fundamentalism and ethnic chauvinism.

This is a disappointing situation to be in because, to the degree to which fundamentalisms and chauvinisms of various kinds reign in the popular mind, economic and social injustice will grow exponentially. It is left to this region's Leftist and centrist forces to lift this veil of ignorance from the minds of the masses.

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