Dividing the World, Pt. 1 feat. Andrew

the global stage. So going from the concept of civilized and primitive, to the East and West binary, to the imagined communities called nations, the clash of quote unquoteizations, to the concept of first, second, and third worlds, to the development spectrum, to the global North and global cell, then finally to the core and the periphery. So we have a lot of ground to cover in this episode.

of the narrative there. The inherent message is that the state is the final and superior form of human organizing and people who have chosen to exist outside it are not because they chose to, but because they haven't made it there yet. And of course Scott problematized that suggests it maybe it's a choice, not a failure to accede to that civilization. And it's a concept that like young Burmese fighters have goed.

and they were like, no, these are a family. They were brothers and sisters and siblings, and like they want the same thing as us, Like they're not primitive, they just don't want the state. So I guess in that sense, I would want to be labeled as primitive too. I think the primitive people are doing cool shit and then the civilized people are not.

And so those who did not ascribe to those ideals would have been people who were labeled barbarians.

I guess, I don't know, maybe maybe folks are moving back that way, but like the imagery and the distinction between the way or even like Lewis and Clark when they're addressing the indigenous people they meet and calling them children, right like like this this binary distinction is so it's so apparent, and like, I don't know, it seems so outlandish, I think to most folks today maybe, But then we do similar things, I guess in uh, you know it just in a slightly more subtle way sometimes.

these European norms and practices across the world. When it comes to things like relation to the land when it comes to things like the divisions between people, between genders, all these things, all these attitudes that are now so widespread, originated from in part, this elevation of one above the other. And speaking of I mentioned the word western there, and that's really another way that we've sort of maintained this binary in a different court of paint. It's not quite

the same. So there's this sort of lingering framework of the notion of the East and the West. Right in the ancient times, it was China versus Rome. These days it's probably China versus America. Yeah, China really is that old?

there's a necessary tension between the two. You know. This concept of the orient and Orientalism is something that it would side identified famously as something that was constructed by the West as an exotic, irrational, decadent, and dangerous place. And so that whole dualistic narrative was then put into the imperial project to Legitimizeie domination and to position the East as a passive subject without a voice of their

own and constant need of Western intervention and guidance. So this West becomes this sort of stage for modernity and science and region and progress, this whole idea of the protagonist of history and the orients the East. They're the primitive,

I guess side of that binary. Although unlike the civilized primitive binary or civilized barbarian binary of old I think while there could have been racial components to it in the past, this one is more explicitly racial and geographic in its division, because I mean in ancient room, anybody

could essentially become a Roman citizen. You know, it wasn't necessarily racially, you know, pure area and sense that a lot of new Nazis and stuff today like to look back at that period as you had a quieter diversity of phenotypes in the Roman Empire. Yeah, but you know, when you come to this orient and occident dichotomy, it's very much racialized. You know, a lot of times when people talk about the Western world, it really tends to be I guess a more politically correct way of saying

the white wood. Yes, at least in my observation.

isolated under Franco. Right, but like yeah, this they called it the black legend that like Spain does not belong to Europe and and it's not again it's racialized, right, it's because Spain had this exchange with the Muslim world, right, and like that that culture deeply impacted Spanish culture, and even after the Conquista, it's like it's like, you know, the French historians were just like, nah, you guys are tainted, like you you don't get to come back.

or a maurist or anything of that show. But there is something to be said for the way that the East of the Orient has been sidelined, marginalized to treat it us lesser than for so long, and now they're at a point where their geopolitical sway has to be respected. Yeah, I'm not a rooting for them by any means. I'm not one of those people is like, yeah, multipolar world. I would rather we have no poles, you know, as an anarchist.

of the European imagine nation. It's commonly defined and it's USA worldwide today, But it's commonly defined as a large community of people who share common identity, often through language, culture, history, and sometimes ethnicity, then who usually inhabit a specific geographic territory with its own political organization. The comminations without states as simply a culturalmmunity force. People feel a collective long

and then share that snee. But nations are as we know, mostly tied up with states today, hence nation being used as a synonym for country.

And this fantasy is not necessarily something that is automatic or natural as we tend to see it today. But it's really the rise of things like print capitalism, with the mass production of books and newspapers, and that's what really shaped the standardization and formalization of these imagined communities, through the creation of like common cultural reference and a shared sense of history. Yeah. And then of course you had the nation idea of further being developed by liberal

revolutions and through the shared experience of colonial rule. You know, we're subject populations with mobilized nationalism to claim self determination.

turned against them, it's still an entrepreneurial endeavor, right Like. Still, you could be creating a nation which wants to kick France out of Morocco, right that that nation may not have space for everyone who inhabits that territory of Morocco.

See that's where I come from. The whole process of nation building is always ongoing, and we are in a position where there's an effort, there's a very strong efforts to both push for a nation building but also recognize our divergent pasts, you know, because we have this sort of almost equal in population Indo Trinadian and Afro Trianadian populations, and then a mixed population as well, and then you have some Chinese and Syria and Lebanese and Venezuela and

and Filipino and all these different groups come into Trinidad, and because of that colonial past, their tensions is between those groups and things are still play out to this day. But while tensions are played out, there's also an effort to construct a unity through an allegiance to the nation of Trinan Tobago to create a sense of national identity, and as a very young country, it's still quite difficult

to do. I can imagine, especially in the United States, it might have been a similar situation where you have all these different European populations and different populations from around the world who are in the US and there hasn't quite yet been a fully built up American identity yet, and so a lot of those tensions are still kind of playing out, and so it takes a couple of generations for there to be a sense of American identity

that arises out of that. Yeah, definitely turnedad being one a younger colony and two only recently becoming independent in nineteen sixty two, it hasn't had enough time yet to, I suppose, develop that patriotism that America is so known for. And so you still see a lot of people who continue to have allegiance to the ancestry, to the heritage, even before they have any sort of sense of connection to the country. Concept of truingad.

And sometimes they'll talk about their freedoms in terms of English freedoms, which they themselves are not granted, right that they don't have the same freedoms as English people in England when they are a British colony. This concept of freedom they will elucidate like it, and like so much of it is based on like English common law, right, they didn't necessarily see themselves as distinct. That comes later. And like the US one is interesting because they have

to develop this kind of civic nationalism much. I guess France does that two of course, but like France, probably the og there. But like this idea, like you've subscribed to these ideas. Therefore you're an American because they're like this, this nation constructed by people from all over Europe. For the most part, the phrasing is universal, but the implementation is not. Right, it's also a country where people own other people.

have us see in that construction. And so these nationalist projects will try to downplay or suppress differences in conflicts and as part of why nationalism so often lends itself to fascist well, because fascism is an outgrowth of this idea of nation where they promote this vision of national unity and stifle class conflict and create a collusion of classes that push us aside of people who don't fit within their concept of the nation.

be exterminated exactly. Is an obvious outgrowth of nationalism.

So even if they're legally citizens or legally a long term residents, or they haven't residents there for a long time the entire lives generations, or if the case may be, they don't count. They're outside forever.

of your national identity? Like the cene qua non of being British is like which flag you take to the cricket match, Like it's particularly ridiculous and if it doesn't reflect exclusion, right, people aren't taking their flags to the cricket match because like that's the core of the entity. They're just like, yeah, well kind of I get treated differently because of my ethnic boundary, like makeup right ethnic presentation.

So I guess you guys don't like me, so like they'll be funny when we kick your ass cricket, like it's the cause of arrow points in the wrong direction.

I taught first world, second world, third world. But I didn't teach first world, second world, third world in the context of the Cold War, because I grew up in a post Cold War world, and these terms came from the Cool War but persisted after the Cold War. So what happened, I was taught we are third world because

we are still developing. We're not at that intermediate stage development where we could say that the second world, and we're not at that first world level of development like America, right, And that's a smaller side for me. But I've always found it mildly irritating when I see people use this famous social media catchphrase or America is a third World country in a Gucci belt.

my own eyes. You know, there's still things there that Americans might take for granted that are just not that would never be taken for granted in other contexts. And I see, of course the division see in America's version of the First World versus you know, some of the European Social Democracy's version of the First World. So I get that frustration, you know, the lack of free health care and that kind of thing, investment in infrastructure and all that. But let me just get into the background

behind the tomb. Right as we step into the Cool War, you have this concept of the three world model that came after World War Two. The pre war status cool was over and you had new conflicts on the horizon. And so the film First World originally described the capitalist block led by the United States and Western Europe, where

capitalist markets, liberal democracy, and economic progress was celebrated. And then you had the Second World block, which referred to the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union, where what I would consider state and centrally planned economies shape their societies. So in the First World they had countries like the US, Australia, Africa today might be shocking you know, Iran was even considered part of the First World Block during the Cool War.

That might be shockinged now because when we think of some of these countries like, oh, those are Third World countries. Those are undeveloped countries. They aren't at the developed level of the West yet. But in the context in which the three World model originated, these were countries that explicitly aligned themselves with the policies of the United States and

its allies as capitalist nations against the Soviet Bloc. And the Soviet Bloc you had, of course, countries like China and Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia, Yemen, Huba, all these different countries align themselves explicitly with the Soviet Union. Then the Third World and where the third will concept came in was

with all the countries that stood against picking aside. Yeah, a lot of these were former colonies and nations that chose not to side completely with either and to this whole concept, this whole idea of the non aligned movement. It really kicked off thanks to the joining of the Indian Prime Minister, the Kenaian President, the Indonesian President, and the President of the United Arab Republic alongside Yugoslavia, and so all these countries who all had very different economic

arrange ones. Yugoslavia famously was kind of doing its own thing, compared to a lot of the other countries associated with socialism, India and Ghana, they were also kind of doing their own thing, kind of a mix Trancebagos also considered part of the non aligned movement. And so these classifications at the time, these were geopolitical and all political ideologies, not necessarily economic development. So technically speaking, the term shouldn't even

be relevant US today. I mean, the Cold War of the twentieth century is over. But over time the narrative began to twist. You know, so because you didn't pick a side, you didn't pick the red team or the blue team, you didn't pick the first will of the Second World, this narrative developed where or you didn't pick a side, you're politically independent, so you're poor, you're chaotic,

you're a failed state, all these different things. And of course there were incidents in part influenced of course by state actors in the US and state actors in the Soviet client block would have contributed to this outcome. But over time you get this sense of or the third

world is failure. All these states were trying different paths of development, different approaches to governance from either of the two camps, mixed hybrid approaches, but in the end this just got them stuck with the label of underdevelopment and at having them being seen as last. Now today people don't use food world as much as they use developing, at least in you know, the more above board discourse. But that division also has its own implications, right, the

developed countries versus the developing countries. It's kind of a softer sorts of version of the same thing.

And the implication is that there's a single linear path to progress modeled after Western capitalism, that all societies are progressing towards through industrialization, through consumerism, through the ALMIGHTYGP growth and so development of your your underdevelopment becomes a tool of intervention. It becomes a way to mask imperial interests with the sort of the nair of oh, we're just kind of helping you out.

saying goes, but not exactly. In the early nineteen nineties, Samuel Huntington came up with a thesis to explain the conflicts that we define the post Cold War world and as we entered into the twenty fifth century, and so he argued that the future of global conflict would not be defined by competing ideologies or economic systems, but by

cultural fault lines. In his nineteen ninety three article in Foreign Affairs, which Lates expanded into his nineteen ninety six book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Huntington predicted that the primary source of conflict

in a new era would be between distinct civilizations. His model would have pointed to clashes between the West and other groups Islamic nations, the Confucian East, and of course set up this sense that the West is this pinnacle of rationality and modernity, and all these others are in competition with the fantastic, amazing West. And I always like to call out some of these strange ways that he

has divided the world. Right, So sub Saharan Africa is all grouped up into the African camp, all of North Africa, the Middle East, into West Asia, all of that is considered part of the Islamic civilization. Forget all the different between any of them. By the way, Indonesia it's also part of the Islamic block. You have the Sinic or the Confucian block that includes China, both Koreas, Taiwan, and Vietnam, except for the parts of China that are under the

Buddhist camp, such as Tibet. So Tibet is kind of carved up on its own as its own camp. Mongolia is also under the Buddhist camp. Thailand and all these others in Southeast Asia considered part of the Buddhist camp.

His book about migration in the United States. M it was after clash of civilizations he wrote this book about like how the like I think I don't quite remember how he terms it, Like does he use Latino or Hispanic or something else, but like that that that population increasing in the United States will like divide the to day too, too fundamentally opposed civilizations.

would unfold. It also creates sort of cultural device that settle into place at home will not create, but shape those cultural divides as you create the sense of oh, if there's if we're experiencing a clash of civilizations right now, then this flood couldn't quote of people from another civilization is a threat to the invasion. It's something that needs

to be targeted and fought against. And so in a sense, his class civilizations is kind of a repackaging of a lot of the binaries and divisions we've spoken about before. You have elements of nationalism, you have elements of civilized versus warber, the evelements of East and West, the Cold War dichotomies. All of that kind of comes together in this neat package. Finally, we enter the twenty first century, and they are two very popular ways that we now

categorize the world. People tend to use the phrases Global North and Global South as a softer or more politically correct alternative to develop developing or foods in third world. It's considered less loaded, more neutral sounding, and it's originally popularized via UN frameworks and the brand line, which is done in nineteen eighty, which drew a literal line across the globe, separating the wealthier North from the poorer South. To be clear, though, despite the geographical language, it's not

literally about hemispheres. Australia is considered part of the Global North and Mongolia is considered part of the Global South. But generally speak in the global salth refus to the post Coulnar regions and the global North refus the wealthy, industrialized trees of the world. To me, again, it's not really a flawless framework. It has all the same binaries and smoothing over of complexities of internal class divides between for example, ritually it's in the global South and poor

communities in the North. It gives impression that entire countries share unified class experience, I think. I think it also has the potential to obscure inequality between South South relations. So yes, two countries may both be a part of the Global South, but there could be a massive power differential between them that you know, sets them up for interventions and equal treaties and also sort of different sorts

of medline. For example, Saudi Arabia, at least in one map that I saw, is considered part of the Global South. But as we know, Saudi Arabia is famous first medland across Africa and the Middle East. It's interventions, it's financing of the conflicts across the region. Now I get why the term is used. It creates a sense of shared struggle, especially in anti imperialist and climate justice spaces. But I think it has weaknesses, you know, and how we constructlidarity.

a patchwork of individual national economies. So the focuses on labor roles, on commodity flows, and on power concentration. And I think in an even more globalized world it makes the most sense to the wallaceteine. They have three differ

and zones of the global economy. You have the core, which as you know, have strong states, financial capital, tech heavy industries controlled with global institutions, and they tend to exploit the labor and resources of the periphery, while exports and high value goods and debt structures, and the periphery of the countries that tend to have weaker institutions, extractive or career economies, reliance and export and raw materials, debt

defendency and structural adjustment policies, and they often dump in grounds for pollution waste and arms from the global North. The semi periphery are then considered under his model, the countries that mediates between the core and the periphery. These are industrializing economies with mixed labor and capital exports. They sometimes exploit others while being exploited themselves, and these include

countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, Turkey, and South Africa. And they tend to save as the buffers as stabilize the system while chasing core status. I think this model is very dynamic. It could be more dynamic, but it does have the capacity to highlight the systemic interdependence of this glocal system, that one region's wealth is contingent on another's dispossession.

It makes it very useful for understanding that, you know, poverty is not something that just happens, it's nan is very clearly structured and developed by the wealth of the North. And I think also with the corporate free model, you see the sense of a one way flow where value and labor goes from the periphery to the core. But there is another direction that flow goes right because the

migrants from the periphree they go to the core. They fill precurious rules and core economy is like care work and agriculture and logistics, and so they almost become an important periphery within the core, and their absence from the periphree also deprives the periphree. Hence the phenomenon of brain drain, where people are sipher the way as label and the and the educated population tends to leave, you know, their

countries of origin. But I'm saying it's not just a one way flow, because you also have that sense of diaspora and diasporic networks that kind of reverse the flow. Remittances for some countries can be a significant chunk of their national income. I think the Philippines is a classic example of this. Some of the Caribbean countries, either historically or presently, we're very dependent on remittances from their diasporic populations sending money back home. Lebanon is another example of

Salvador is another example. They become a key part of the national GDP. That sort of relationship of my creatia. Yeah, but I think what I want to do with this corporate free model or this corefree SEMIPI free model is expanded and one of the ways that I found very useful to do so comes from fellow podcaster shout out to Elia j Ayube. Yeah, I read it. Article of is that was on the anarchist libraries called the periphery

has no time for binaries. This very crucial point, and I quote, we are as peripheral to the global soult regimes crushing us as they are perceived to be by the Western think tanks and foreign ministers who view their imagined space as the center of the world. China and Russia and Iran are peripheral to the West, and any and all activists in China and Russia and Iran are

peripheral to their governments. So I kind of like this sense of not just looking on the country level, but looking at particular populations, populations within countries the relationships between them, bringing in that class dynamic Yeah, routine populations more prominently.

right now against the hinder in the MMR. And like, I think it doesn't make sense to see that whole country is peripheral, right, Like that binary doesn't function when like the salient colonial violence happening, especially in the MMA, is happening within the ANMA, but it doesn't make any less salient. And like the experience in colonialism is still violent. And if we only use this state level binary, we will totally miss.

shifting beast. But I think it's good to have some sense of or some language to understand the inequality and podynamics present in the world. So we can reclaim these free mooks, so we can reject them. You know, we could use them for solidarity or for division. But the question I want to leave us with the wrap of this episode is how do we build a world where these divisions are no longer descriptive or relevant? And that's all I have for today? Or power to all the people. Peace.